Guides for the Young
by NHunter
Summary: Humanity makes an earlier first contact, and with a different race. Thus, the history is changed.
1. The Great Discovery

**Title** : Guides for the Young  
 **Author** : NHunter  
 **Genre** : General, Adventure  
 **Rating** : T  
 **Warnings** : AU; Possible violence and strong language; Crazy author...

* * *

 ** _Disclaimer_** _: I_ _DO NOT_ _own "_ ** _Mass Effect_** _"_ _franchise._ No profit is being made. Same goes for any books, video games, anime or manga I may or may not use for ideas.

"speaking"  
' _thinking_ '  
" _speech not understood by humans_ "

* * *

 **Guides for the Young  
chapter 1: The Great Discovery**

Ever since the dawn of humanity, it was always believed that there were great mysteries hidden on Mars. And once human managed to leave the atmosphere of their home world, the Red Planet saw many automated probes trying to find out, whether those mysteries existed. And the so-called Martian Curse certainly made the conspirator theoreticians think that _something_ out there didn't want to be discovered, even if in reality all those failures were caused by mechanical or software failure of the primitive probes various space agencies sent to explore Mars. Either way, even a century after the first probe made it to the Red Planet, the interest in its secrets was still strong.

Of course, the technology was getting more and more advanced, and by 2065 a semi-permanent manned research station was built near the Martian equator. There even were plans to expand this outpost into a permanent 'settlement' in the near future... Right now, though, it was little more than an underground bunker with a few surface constructions. From there, a dozen or so of scientists controlled the numerous robotic rovers that explored the surface of the Red Planet.

Even such exploration, despite great many advancements of the human technology, wasn't exactly an easy task: while normally rather calm, the Martian weather could devolve into a raging dust storm at the drop of a hat. And even though the rovers had some protective 'armor', if one got caught in the middle of a dust storm, the chances were, its scientific instruments will be damaged. Often to the point where some serious repairs were needed to restore those instruments' functionality... Thus, anytime the satellites in orbit detected a brewing dust storms, all rovers out there were immediately ordered to find themselves a shelter and stay there until the weather calmed down.

Today, the satellites orbiting around Mars detected another dust storm forming. And it was going to be a massive one, predicted to cover nearly half of the southern hemisphere and last for at least a few days, probably a whole week. Immediately, all of the rovers on the storm's projected path were ordered to shelter up and go into sleeping mode to preserve energy...

This storm turned out to be even worse than expected, but, before long, it too ended. Then, the reactivation command was sent to the rovers, along with an order to perform full self-diagnostics. Most of the six rovers that were in the storm's area made through it intact, but the rover #23 that was exploring the central Promethei Terra reported some damage to the spectrometer, x-ray cam and other less-critical equipment – apparently, the tall cliff it was hiding under wasn't a good enough protection against the dust storm. This rover was then commanded to return to the base for repairs. It was also told to use the less-traveled paths wherever possible: why waste the chance to do some extra exploring?

As the rover #23 rolled out of its hiding spot and climbed onto the nearest plateau, its cameras caught the sight of something interesting. Across the valley, among the reddish sands of Mars, something silvery-gray and apparently artificial in nature could be seen. Something that the scientists could swear wasn't there just a week ago. The storm must have uncovered it. And so another one might bury this anomaly under the sands again... It needed to be investigated _right now_.

Crossing the valley took the rover several hours, but, of course, the mysterious object was still there. And, now that it could be looked at from the close range, there were no more doubts about it artificial nature: it was made from a never-seen-before polished silvery-gray material with light greenish tint. Even based on the images alone, the scientists at the research station all agreed that this thing couldn't conceivably be a natural phenomenon... Alas, the rover's damaged spectrometer made it impossible for them to find out what this material really was right now...

Either way, a sign of intelligent – and most definitely extraterrestrial – life were discovered on Mars!

 **~/ *** \~**

Of course, the discovery that more or less proved that humanity wasn't alone among the stars left the entire population of Earth excited and anxious. Some people believed that the artifact discovered on Mars should be excavated and studied extensively; others were less optimistic and feared that this discovery was a sign of an imminent alien invasion that would be the end of the humankind; and there there were conspiracy theoreticians who argued that the 'Martian anomaly' was created by NASA or ESA or some other space agency to steal taxpayers' money...

The latter two groups, understandably, were mostly ignored by the scientific community; thus the debates were about how the 'Martian anomaly' should be excavated and studied, rather than whether it should be done or not. And with how many things had to be accounted for, those debates lasted for quite a while: it took the space agencies almost half a year to reach the consensus. And then two more years were spent on getting the expedition – probably the most important one in the human history – ready... Finally, on October 13, 2070 a small fleet of spacecrafts, carrying over a thousand tons of equipment, numerous surface habitats and 160 scientists departed from Earth.

The 'fleet' arrived to Mars in the middle of December, and the establishment of the research outpost next to the future dig site was completed by the Christmas time. And just as the new year rolled around, the actual excavation of the 'Martian anomaly' began.

About the first thing the scientists did was analyzing the material the mysterious object was object was made from. This material turned out to be a rather complex metal-organic polymer, both light enough and sturdy enough to be usable as an armor for a space-faring vessel. It was also remarkably-resistant to corrosion and degradation: it was projected to last for thousands of years even in rather corrosive mediums. As for what was built from such a polymer... Once the Martian sand and dust were removed, the ruins of a few large buildings were uncovered.

What was even more remarkable, these buildings hadn't collapsed by themselves; something had purposely destroyed them. Further analysis showed that the destruction was done with a weapon straight out of the science fiction: a cannon that fired streams of superheated ferromagnetic liquid at relativistic speeds. The revelation that an alien war had been fought in the Solar system a few thousands years ago was certainly quite very shocking, but as there were absolutely no signs that either of the forces that fought that war was still active _anywhere_ in the known space, it was decided to continue the excavation.

As the rubble was cleared, the exploration of the alien buildings truly began. Unfortunately, most of the things inside – those that weren't outright destroyed during the structures' collapse – had degraded into dust and useless metal scraps. Or, in the case of dead aliens, into just bones. That was kind of disappointing. Still, despite all that, the purpose of this alien base was quite clear: research and observation of the Solar system as a whole and the Earth in particular. Whether the aliens had been doing this for benevolent purposes or not was unknown...

While the others were digging through the ruins in hopes of finding some secret hidden cashes the contents of which had survived to this day, the xeno-biologists were busy studying the alien skeletons, which turned out to be just a little less than fifty thousands years old. And despite the rather bad conditions the bones were in, a lot could be still learned from them.

These aliens were an oxygen-breathing bipedal race that stood a little over six feet tall and, apparently, had evolved from some sort of a reptile-like creatures. They had three fingers on each limb, though the third toes were small to the point of being rudimentary. Their bone structure suggested that they were viviparous and their teeth were those of a predator... Oh, and these aliens had four eyes. Another curious thing about these aliens was their DNA: whereas all complex life on Earth had double-stranded DNA, these aliens had a quad-stranded one... Their home world must have been an interesting place...

* * *

After over a month of futile attempts to bypass the alien gates, the human explorers finally managed to access the underground portion of the Martian base. And to their disappointment, everything in there too was in a damaged state. Though, unlike what they had found on the ground level, most the devastation here was caused not by ferromagnetic cannons, but by an explosion of what everyone assumed to be a power reactor of some sort.

The reactor chamber and the nearby rooms were completely destroyed, and whatever little had survived the explosion itself had decayed into useless scrap over the thousands of years since then. The rooms further away from the 'ground zero' weren't damaged as much, but most of their contents still had turned into the useless scrap over the millenniums... Either way, pretty much nothing had survived to the present day intact.

And that was why a pair of strange vehicles in the 'garage' drew so much attention: they were more or less in one piece... except for their engine compartments, which were destroyed by a collapsed wall. These vehicles were shaped like elongated turtle shells and about as big as a bus. They had no wheels or tracks, but they wouldn't be able to fly under the known laws of physics either... It was really such a shame that the motors of these machines got destroyed – successfully reverse-engineering that technology would have advanced the humanity by several decades!

While mechanics and engineers were salivating at the thought of learning the secrets of the alien tech, the computer specialists were not as impressed: a husk of a mainframe they've found was the size of a room and looked like something straight out of the 1970s or 1980s science fiction. Most of this computer's hardware had decayed into dust over the past fifty millenniums, thus making it impossible to turn the thing on – and even if could be done, where were the guarantees that a human would be able to interface with this alien tech? There were no displays or keyboards or whatever in sight... And the same decay that rendered the hardware inoperative also made it impossible to take out the data drives for later study. Whatever information had been stored in this mainframe was lost to the sands of time...

 **~/ *** \~**

While everyone agreed that the discovery of the Martian Ruins was among the most important discoveries in the entire human history, there wasn't much that the humanity actually learned from these ruins. And, aside from confirming that they indeed weren't alone in the universe, the Martian Ruins only gave the humanity the basic genetic map of some race of _ancient astronauts_ and the polymeric material that they used for their ships and their buildings. That was about it. No super-tech that would allow reasonably-fast interstellar travel, no super-tech that would solve Earth's hunger problems, no super-tech that could give unlimited amounts of energy... Nothing!..

Thus, once pretty much every inch of the Martian Ruins was explored after half a year of study, it was decided that the time for the expedition to head back home came. Most of the equipment was packed within a week and everyone was getting ready to depart for the Earth, when a well-disguised secret door was discovered next to 'garage' area of the ruins' basement.

Immediately, the expeditions' mission was extended as the people wanted to know what was behind that door. Alas, opening it was no easy task. An alien mechanism that opened this massive door in the past was apparently broken, and that made manual opening impossible as well. And since this door was made from the same armor-like polymer as many other parts of the alien outpost, cutting even a human-sized hole in it would take several days of work even with plasma torches. But since no one had any better ideas on how to get past this obstacle...

And let it be said that the plasma torches – the very same ones that could 'eat' through military-grade metal armors at several inches per second – indeed were woefully inefficient when it came to cutting the alien material. Then again, this stuff was tough enough to survive an atmospheric re-entry. Even on a hellish world like Venus... Still, the slow progress in opening a passage through _The Door_ left more than a few people wishing a faster alternative existed.

Finally, after almost eighty hours of nearly non-stop work, a human-sized hole was made in the door. Through this hole a rather featureless dark tunnel spiraling downwards is observed. And while it might have been a kinda risky decision, it was decided that a small group of three engineers, armed with little more than flashlights and some instruments, will explore the tunnel. Oh, and just because they weren't carry many tools, it didn't mean that the 'chosen ones' had a light load: while the spacesuits got smaller and more comfortable over the past century, the air tanks were still there and they weren't going anywhere anytime soon. And, due to no one knowing exactly how long this tunnel was or what was at its end, the engineers were carrying double the normal number of those...

The first thing the trio of explorers noticed was the state of the tunnel: unlike the rest of the alien outpost, it was in almost pristine condition. Some even thought half-seriously that, should some secret switch be activated, the lighting would turn on! But there was no switch in sight, and so they continued descending with their flashlights as their only source of light. This darkness also made it harder to determine how long this tunnel was, especially with the 'entrance' no longer in sight...

Finally, after over an hour of slowly inching through the darkness, the team of engineers finally reached the level out of the tunnel, and, likely, its end. At very least, there was a huge and tightly-sealed gate some ninety feet ahead of them.

"Whoa!" One of the engineers suddenly exclaimed.

"What is it, Alex?" His colleague, Jhao Liang from People's Republic of China, asked immediately.

"Switch your visor to infrared." Was the only answer that Alex gave. His two fellow engineers did as he said, and a moment later they saw what had shocked him: not even three feet in front of them, the tunnel was crossed by a diagonal grid of small laser beams. Alien laser beams. Created by working alien lasers. A trip-mine of sorts most likely – the lasers were too weak to be usable as a weapon.

"Are you seeing this, boss?" Alexander radioed to the surface. "How should we proceed?" Unfortunately, his answer was nothing more than static: apparently, many layers of alien armor polymer and Martian soil had screwed the communication channels up. "Boss?.. Damn it!" There was a short pause, before he asked: "Okay, what do we do next?"

"I say, we return to the surface." Nicola Faure, the third member of this team said. "Proceeding forwards is too dangerous: who knows what will happen when we touch these lasers?" His Chinese colleague laughed.

"Are you expecting it to unleash an army of homicidal robots or something?"

"Be serious." Alexander snapped. "While I really doubt there is an army or robots behind this gate, touching the lasers might still activate some sort of a security system... And since we aren't the aliens that built this place, it might think that we're enemies and..." Suddenly Nicola froze as if something had paralyzed him.

"Guys... I think the valve of my air tank is malfunctioning." The French engineer reported after a long silence. "Help me install the new tank." He said then, while lowering himself on his hunkers to make the upcoming task easier for this colleagues. The Chinese and Russia-born American men swiftly connected the new air tank to their teammate's spacesuit, before disconnecting the malfunctioning one.

"Better?" Jhao asked.

"Yes. Thank you." Nicola replied. Then he tried to stand back up. Alas, the spacesuits the Martian mission was issued weren't the most flexible ones – they were built to offer maximal protection from the elements instead – and so the man couldn't help but sway at one point. His teammates were able to catch him before he could fall on his ass, but he still managed to touch the alien detection grid with something. Almost immediately, several more lasers activated and... began scanning three humans, none of whom even dared to breathe, as if expecting some alien cannons to pop up and turn them into a bloody paste on the wall at any moment.

The 'scanning' lasted for about a dozen seconds. Once it ended, greenish-white lights came to life along the floor and the ceiling of the tunnel, momentarily blinding the three humans. At the same time, a force-field-like wall appeared at the 'end' of the even portion of the tunnel, seemingly trapping the humans there. Seemingly because with some effort it was possible to pass through this 'wall'...

The questions about the nature of that force-field aside, once it was up, the previously-hidden pumps began venting the Martian atmosphere from this portion of the tunnel, replacing it with an air mixture that was actually breathable by humans – the percentage of the oxygen in it was a bit lower than it was in the Earth's atmosphere, but not enough to render it dangerous for a healthy human. It was also sterile, so no chance of catching some alien disease. Nevertheless, none of the three engineers dared to remove their spacesuits. As soon as the alien air pumps finished their work, the gate at the end of the tunnel began opening, revealing a circular chamber that lay beyond it to the three brave explorers.

"Oh my God!" Nicola exclaimed. Indeed, it was hard to believe that he and his colleagues were seeing _this_. The chamber they could now access was huge, easily a hundred yards across. At the center of the chamber, there was a deep thirty yards wide hollow that, apparently, housed an alien reactor that powered this underground facility up. Above the hollow, there was an island with a strange antenna-like construct sitting atop of it.

Oh, and that antenna-like thing wasn't the only object within the chamber, not by a long shot. The sector of the room across from the entrance was filled with numerous bales and containers of alien goods. The right-hand quarter of the chamber contained various machinery – most of which was still in a working condition – as well as three of those vehicle-things, much like the ones found in the 'garage'. Finally, the left-hand quarter of the chamber was dedicated to a strange machine with maybe a hundred of coffin-like containers attached to it. Most of these not-coffins were 'dead', but seventeen were highlighted, indication that something – or someone – might be inside.

His curiosity sparked, Jhao Liang began carefully approaching this wall-of-coffins. And for a while the alien machinery showed no reaction. Then, once he got within maybe ten yards of it, a greenish holographic display was suddenly projected from a 'console' sitting at the edge of the installation. And while the text on this display was beyond the human understanding, the accompanying image was simple enough: it was schematic depiction of this machine. On this scheme, a half of those coffin-things were shown as inactive, while thirty three more had some sort of an error symbol over them. The remaining seventeen pods on the scheme – which perfectly matched the seventeen highlighted 'coffins' on the actual wall – were perfectly fine.

It took the Chinese engineer several seconds to finally realize what this all meant. This was some sort of a cryogenic sleep device and... Some of the aliens in there were still alive!

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That's all, folks  
Read and Review!


	2. Awakened to the New World

Here's the second chapter. Enjoy!

 *** Review response**:  
 **Radji** , **SwarmQueen43** , I personally haven't seen another story where Protheans are the first living aliens humanity makes contact with. There was a story where Javik was unearthed before the events of the third game, but... It still happened after the First Contact War.  
 **Impstar** , my own take on the Javik's assholeness is that he is more or less the true renegade who LOST. The Protheans from the earlier days shouldn't be as bad. They, of course, wouldn't be saints, but they would be noticeably nicer than the "Prothy the Prothean" we all (?) know and love.  
 **edboy4926** , **MEEKVERSEFAN2.0** , **lordamnesia** , **davycrockett100** , **Lord Xantos A. Fowl** , **inuboy86** , **Siriusly Grim** , **Dymian** , thank you for your reviews, folks!  
 **incy789** , no, no sequels. Just the next chapter. ;)  
 **Watcher123** , yes, the aliens are Protheans. And, yes, most of them are scientists. The ones that study "cosmic imperative" to be precise.  
 **roughstar333** , well, there was some mass effect tech in there too - there are three intact Prothean shuttles parked inside the bunker after all - but what are those compared to the actual living aliens? Also, because they have much better access to the Prothean technology here (through actual living Protheans) and for another reason (to be unveiled in this chapter), the humanity will have a different approach to building their fleet.  
 **shadowrwriter** , as I said in my reply to **Impstar** above, these Protheans are mostly scientists. And will be somewhat nicer. And - as it will be uncovered in this chapter - they will forewarn the humanity about the Reapers. The Protheans will also help the humanity prepare for the inevitable to the best of their ability (none of them know all that much about ship construction or weapon designing - they are evolutionary xenobiologists!)... As for other colonies... Well, I did plan on Javik being unearthed sooner than in the game, but... I actually don't know about including other survivors.

 *** Author's Note**: In this chapter I'm taking A LOT of artistic liberty with how the UN summits work. Please, let me be forgiven for this.

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 ** _Disclaimer_** _: I_ _DO NOT_ _own "_ ** _Mass Effect_** _"_ _franchise._ No profit is being made. Same goes for any books, video games, anime or manga I may or may not use for ideas.

"speaking"  
' _thinking_ '  
" _speech not understood by humans_ "

* * *

 **Guides for the Young  
chapter 2: Awakened to the New World  
**

For the second time in five years the news coming from Mars caused a major upheaval back on Earth. And this time around it was even worse: the reports about actual living extraterrestrials being found inside the Martian Ruins seemed to cause everyone lose their heads. While thousands of people in the streets were chanting about the Solar system being human territory and demanding the alien threat to be ended now, the politicians of all sorts were fighting over who gets what from that cache of alien goods. And, of course, over who gets to study the living specimen of the extraterrestrial life.

After a couple of weeks of listening to politicians going out of their way to reap the greatest benefits of the discovery for their countries and themselves, the scientific community had enough. And with some backing from the more level-headed members of UN, they took control over the situation. All those greedy slimy bastards that called themselves the representatives of the civilized world were told that no single country will be getting to study what was taken from the Martial Ruins by itself. Instead, the alien tech and the aliens themselves will be studied by an international teams on a neutral territory.

Such a decision, understandably, didn't sit well with those who wished to empower themselves and just themselves with alien technology. And even greater number of politicians were ...displeased with how the UN was stepping beyond its advisory role. The world was coming apart at the seams... Who would have thought that aliens could very well end the human civilization without firing a single shot? Thankfully, the situation wasn't allowed to deteriorate that far: with help from the European Union and, quite surprisingly, the countries of Latin America, the UN enforced its decision.

Once the situation on the Earth was back under control after nearly four months of intense political battles and various militaries flexing their proverbial muscles, the shuttles to retrieve the samples of the alien technology and the extraterrestrials themselves were finally sent to Mars...

 **~/ *** \~**

Overseer Vashan Khalim slowly drifted back to consciousness. There was nothing strange about that: she had just spend a considerable period of time in cryogenic stasis, after all. What came as a surprise to the female researcher was the place she woke up in. It most definitely wasn't her facility on the fourth planet of the star system G12771. It didn't look like any facility built by the Empire either...

For a moment the Prothean woman wondered, whether those machine-devils – the Reapers – the beacon warned about had captured her to conduct some sort of sick experiments on her. She quickly dismissed this thought, though: the Reapers weren't known for studying organics. They either killed people of the Empire mercilessly, or brutally converted them into mindless technologically-enhanced zombies. No, something else must have happened.

Rising out of her stasis pod, overseer Vashan looked around. She was inside some rather small room, roughly twenty by eight ories. The ceiling was painted with white color, while the floor and three of the walls were finished with other light colors. The final wall of the room instead was a window of sorts. A small part of the cubicle was enclosed by a few panels of opaque glass. A lavatory maybe? As for the rest of the 'room',.. In addition to the stasis pod she was currently sitting in, Vashan could see a proper bed, a small table and a chair. On that table there lay a very primitive computer, which, through some strange coincidence, was shaped much like datapads used by everyone in the Empire.

Across the room from the table there was a strange construct with an upside-down bottle full of some transparent liquid – presumably, pure water – on top of it. A few small containers to drink from could be found nearby. There were no signs of edible food anywhere inside the cubicle, but there was a currently-sealed opening in a wall that was marked with a pictogram of some sort of a fruit on a tray: most likely, rations would be delivered through this slot.

All in all, while this room too small and too bare to beseem someone of the overseer Vashan's status, it did have everything that a sentient being needed to live. It was actually a bit more comfortable than the cells the Empire studied the specimen of primitive races in... Speaking of which, Vashan wondered, whether the facility was in belonged to the primitive race she and her men had been studying. So, stepping out of her stasis pod, she placed her hand onto the floor and tried to read this place's history.

She wasn't very surprised to find out that the cubicle she was in was an independent module and not an original part of this facility. Still, not being able to learn more about the place she was held at was annoying. As for the cubicle itself... While sturdy enough to hold a lesser being, it couldn't withstand a good push from any decently-powerful biotic. And while her biotics weren't all that powerful, overseer Vashan believed that she still was strong enough to break free from her current 'cell', should such a necessity arise. She wasn't going to do that right now, though: charging headfirst into the unknown was a good way to waste your life needlessly.

Plus, she was curious about the primitives that run this facility and their intentions. The 'experiences' she had picked up from the cubicle through _the touch_ were insufficient – all they showed a group of primitives furnishing the room and another one sterilizing it; in both cases the primitives wore protective suits that hid most of their bodies, making the task of identifying them nigh impossible.

Not that it remained a problem for long: her awakening didn't go unnoticed with the people manning this facility and various scientists – along with some armed guards – began gathering around the consoles located outside of her cubicle. And given how much their appearance has change since she had seen them last, it wasn't really a surprise that it took the Prothean researcher a few moments to recognize these people as belonging to the same species of primitives that she had been observing. And, considering that they managed to step out of the cradle of their home planet, calling them 'primitives' might not be entirely right, even if their technology was still eons behind that of the Empire... 'Young'. Yes, calling them 'young' was much better.

Suddenly she was brought out of her thoughts by a small hiss coming from a hatch located on the side wall of the cubicle. Looking there, Vashan could see that the hatch was now opened, allowing her to access a small compartment that lay past it. Inside this compartment, there was a couple of ration bars, which were synthesized to resemble the Empire-issued rations from her outpost's food stores... Even though she wasn't really hungry at the moment, overseer Vashan nevertheless picked these rations up, reading their history through _the touch_ in the process. Their quality wasn't that great, but these rations were the only food she had access to at the moment, so they'd do.

Once the scientists of the pri-... young race became sure that she won't be eating at the moment, they decided to go with the next experiment on their to-do list. And, apparently, it involved the primitive computer that was found in the cubicle. The thing came to life and now displayed a looping animation of a finger pressing a big green button at the center of the screen... Deciding to humor the scientists observing her, the Prothean woman picked the computer and pressed her finger against the thing's screen over the 'button'. Immediately, the image changed.

The screen was now separated into two parts. Its left half now held the '1' symbol, while a single orange circle was drawn on the right half. Ten or so heartbeats later, the second orange circle was added to the right half of the computer's screen, while the symbol on the left half was replaced with '2'. Then, a second string of symbols reading '1 + 1' appeared under '2'.

' _They are trying to establish communication with me by teaching me their math._ ' Overseer Vashan realized. And, she had to admit, it was quite a good way to achieve that. The scientists of the ...young race had probably come up with it before they had discovered the Empire's research outpost next to their home planet.

* * *

Measuring time when all that you can see are the insides of some laboratory was not easy, but Vashan had estimated that it took the people of the young race – the humans – roughly a hundred and fifty standard Empire hours to teach her the basics of their language. Now, she finally could ask one of those researchers to get in direct contact with her so that she could 'download' the rest of the knowledge from his – or her, quite a few scientists were female – head through _the touch_.

"Let I touch you." She typed on the human computer. Using the data inputs so different from what she was used to was hard but... with her omni-tool broken, this was the only way. And while she wasn't happy about it, the Prothean woman had accepted that she no longer had her omni-tool: after all, it wasn't supposed to last for thousands of years – and she knew that she had slept for that long.

"Why?" Came a short reply from, Clare, the female researcher that was communicating with her today.

"I need learn." Probably not the way this was supposed to sound in the ...human language, but overseer Vashan simply lacked the knowledge necessary to write in a more refined way.

"You can really learn through touch?" Since she was asked this question, it appeared that the people of the ...young race didn't really believe that such thing was possible. Primitives...

"Yes." She replied. There was quite a pause, before the response came:

"Are you sure this is safe?" The message read. For a moment, the Prothean scientist was offended by the ...primitives questioning her control over _the touch_ , but then she realized that Clare and her colleagues had other concerns as well. For example, they had no guarantees that they will won't get terminally ill from whatever microbes and viruses she carried on her body; likewise, they had no guarantees that something in the facilities atmosphere won't kill her...

"Yes." Overseer Vashan replied after thinking about it for awhile.

"Very well." Was the response. "Let me get the necessary permissions." And, once Clare was sure that her last message was received and read, she stood up from her workstation and walked away. Presumably, to talk to her bosses.

...She returned nearly two standard Empire hours later, accompanied by additional four soldiers. All well armored, but armed with rather strange weapons that, while definitely firearms, looked like they were designed to fire darts instead of bullets. Overseer Vashan then saw Clare say something to the people in the room. The civilians then backed away towards the exit from the chamber, while the armed guards took their positions. And their formation suggested that they were already familiar with biotics and their powers. Interesting, as there was no element Zero on their planet.

Once everyone was in position, Clare put on a flu mask and approached the cubicle and entered an appropriate code on the control panel somewhere out of Vashan's sight. For a second or two nothing happened. Then, there was a slight hiss and the glass-panel wall opened upwards, opening a way out of the cell. Careful no to provoke the armed men into gunning her down, Vashan stepped out of the cubicle she had been confined to until now, and placed her three-fingered hand on whatever bare skin of Clare's she could reach...

 **~/ *** \~**

" _Overseer!" A guard, whose rightmost eye was lost to whatever had left that long scar across his face and the carapace on top of his head, called as he entered the chamber._

" _What is it, Davon." Vashan asked without looking away from the image playing on the holographic display of her workstation. "You are distracting me from an important experiment; this better be important." She added, now finally looking at the scarred guard._

" _We've just received an important message. The Reapers have being observer entering this sector of the galaxy." The man reported. "It is projected that they will reach this star system within thirty standard Empire hours." Okay. That was serious. Even if the throne of the Empire had been destroyed by the initial attack of the Reapers, the people kept fighting on. And this research outpost, like quite a few others, was tasked finding a way to end the threat of the machine-devils; either by uplifting the primitives to fight for the survival of this cycle, or to make them into prepared rulers of the next. "Overseer?" Davon asked. "What are your orders?"_

" _Move the valuable equipment and goods to the vault. Half of the staff, including myself, will enter the cryogenic stasis down there as well. Set our wake-up timer to one thousand years. The rest of the staff is to imitate the normal work." Vashan ordered. "If someone survives the Reapers' visit, wake us up."_

 **~/ *** \~**

"W-What the hell was that?" Clare gasped once Vashan ended the physical connection between them.

"Those should be my memories that you've just witnessed." The human woman remained stunned for a few seconds. Then, she blurted:

"You can speak English now?" Until now, their communication has always been in a written form, and no attempts to teach the awakened aliens to speak English – or any other human language – were made.

"I've lifted the knowledge of your languages from you mind." Vashan replied. "Experiences leave marks, and my people have the ability to read them; we can exchange information and knowledge through touch. However, your... colleagues." She said, nodding towards the human guards who still had their weapons trained on her. "Were getting concerned and so I did not delve into your mind beyond this." After a pause, she added: "I still want some answers." There was a long silence as the humans were trying to process what had just been said.

"Very well, I'll try to answer your question to the best of my abilities." Clare said finally. "But please understand that I don't know everything, and the answers to some of your questions might be classified. Also..." Letting out a sigh, she added: "Wouldn't it be fair for you to answer our questions as well, now that we don't have much problem understanding each other anymore; there is much for us to learn about you and your people."

"That sounds... like a fair trade." Overseer Vashan agreed. "I will answer your questions if you answer mine." Clare nodded. "Considering that it wasn't my people that woke me up, but you, humans, I take it that the Reapers did destroy the surface part of the outpost... How much time has passed since then?"

"Several skeletons were found among the ruins on Mars; to our best knowledge, those are nearly fifty thousands years old." That information seemed to upset the Prothean woman.

"Almost fifty thousands years? That isn't good."

"Why?" Clare asked. "And what are the 'Reapers'?"

"So many questions... There isn't much known about the Reapers; they are a ...race of sentient machines that appear to have existed from the ancient times. They are the ones responsible for the final end of many sentient species that our galaxy gave birth to. We understood that only when they came to end our civilization and our Empire. They come every fifty thousands years from the Dark Space and harvest the advanced civilizations to increase their own ranks."

"That is... I just... I don't know what to say... How much... How much time do we have left?" Clare asked. Vashan squashed her annoyance at the human asking to many questions without answering any of her own in return – warning these ...young about the Reapers was more important, especially since the Empire truly was no more.

"Unknown. It can be as little as few decades or as much as a few centuries. Regardless, you need to prepare." There was a pause, before the Prothean woman continued: "Now, tell me, how much of my staff has survived to the present along with me."

"There were seventeen stasis pods still active when they were found in the ...vault of the Martian base." Clare replied. "I'm sorry to say, but two of those were lost before we managed to find a way to safely disconnect them from their resting places, and three more before we learned how to open them safely." So, Vashan thought morosely, out of seventy men and women that entered the cryogenic sleep only twelve – including herself – were still alive. And she couldn't even really fault the humans for inadvertently killing five of hers.

"Can I see the rest of my people?" The Prothean asked.

"Uhm... I'm not sure it is possible at the moment." Clare replied uneasily. "Eight of them have not been woken up from their cryogenic sleep yet, and the remaining three have been sedated due to their violent reactions upon awakening."

"Let me see those ...troublemakers." Vashan insisted. "My presence should keep them in line."

"You must also understand that I'm just a scientist here. I'm not the one running this facility." Clare continued. "I can put forward the request, but that would be about all that I can about this." The Prothean woman let out an annoyed sound.

"Then do so." She said after a short pause. "I'm the leader of my people, however few of them is left. I believe, this is the ...request that has to be approved." Vashan just stared at the human with all four of her yes. Finally, Clare got the message that this request was the thing she had to do one way or another.

"Very well, I shall go ask my bosses about this." She said finally.

"I shall be waiting for their positive response." The Prothean replied.

 **~/ *** \~**

Despite the best efforts to keep this information under the wraps for now, the existence of the Reapers and their purpose of destroying all advanced intelligent life were soon leaked to the general public, causing wide-spread panic. Likely the greatest one in the entire human history.

Many believed that all technology must be destroyed so that the Reapers believe the humanity to be an underdeveloped civilization not yet ready for the harvest. These people pointed out that even the Protheans, whose empire was nearly as big as the galaxy itself, lost their war. Those, who were more optimistic about the future, argued that this was not the way to go. Instead, they said, the humanity must grow, improve itself, learn from their new 'friends' and find a way to stop the Reapers.

After several months of heated disputations, the UN finally reached the consensus, in which they sided with the people who believed in advancing the humanity in spite of the Reaper threat. This decision was, without any doubts, the most monumental one in the entire human history, and now it was the time to begin the preparations for emerging onto the galactic stage.

Alas, nothing was easy.

The Protheans, while definitely willing to lend the humanity a helpful hand – if only to avenge their late Empire – couldn't actually do much while stranded on the Earth: none of them had the know how of how to build the spaceships or their weapons. They weren't design engineers; they were biologists, two security officers and a maintainance guy.

That, however, didn't mean that the humanity will have to invent everything they needed from scratch. Overseer Vashan Khalim claimed that the designs for ships and weapons might exists within the communication beacon hidden in the Martian base's vault. The said beacon, though, worked on the same principles as _the touch_ , and so only a Prothean could safely extract the information from it. Thus, a new expedition to Mars was needed. And, in addition to collecting any and all blueprints available from the beacon, this mission was also tasked with bringing the rest of the goods from the Prothean vault back to Earth...

* * *

For the six Protheans that went on this mission, the journey to Mars was painstakingly-slow: they all were used to being able to fly from one planet to another within the same star system in just a few hours. The human shuttle, the fastest one yet, needed just a little under four weeks... Eventually, though, the shuttle reached its destination, a landing zone – actually, just a very flat part of the plateau, marked with projectors to make it more noticeable – next to the Promethei Terra research station. From there, the ruins of the Prothean outpost were within walking distance.

And since the shuttle landed there in the 'morning', no time was wasted and the whole group from Earth headed straight there. The Protheans, of course, knew that the research outpost that had been almost like home for them in the past now was nothing more than ruins, but actually seeing it did prompt some noticeable emotions from them. They didn't have time for that right now, however, so setting those emotions aside, overseer Vashan and her men, as well as their human escorts, made their way towards the underground bunker hidden under the ancient facility.

Aside from a couple of not-so-nice comments on the crude way the human explorers had dealt with the door that opened the passage to the vault, the trip down there was spent in silence. And once the group finally reached the chamber, the Protheans went to work. And, the first they did was the stocktaking: they needed to know what has survived to the present day.

Most of the tech was actually fine – though not likely to survive for long once it saw actual usage – as was the horde of the Element Zero. Even two of the three shuttles were still operational. The third one had some sort of a hardware failure in its main computer, but otherwise was in a good condition too.

As for the beacon... It looked like there was nothing in the entire galaxy that could as much as scratch it; it was ready for use and, without any doubts contained the knowledge that would help the humanity both step out of its cradle, the Sol system, and prepare for the Reaper invasion... as long as that knowledge could be translated into some form that the Earth's scientists could work with: the Protheans' communication and data storage systems relied too heavily on their unique physiology and couldn't be used by the humans directly.

* * *

Thanks to the operational Prothean shuttles, the trip back took just a single day. And it was this slow only because no one was sure that the aged and overloaded with cargo spacecrafts would not break in the middle of nowhere under the high stress... Thankfully, there were no incidents and the joint Human-Prothean expedition to Mars returned to Earth safely. They were given a few days to recover, before being summoned before the UN summit to give the preliminary reports on their findings.

"Overseer Khalim, would you please give us the overview of the information you and your people have recovered from the communication beacon?" The USA representative asked, once doctor James Brown, the leader of the human 'half' of the expedition, finished listing the material goods that have been obtained from the vault under the ruins of the Prothean outpost.

"Of course." Vashan replied as she stood up. "Most of the data we got from the beacon is reports about the worlds conquered by the Reaper forces during the fall of the Prothean Empire nearly fifty thousands years ago. These reports, unfortunately, are not detailed enough to give any ideas about the strategies used by the Reapers." Making a second-long pause to take a breath, she continued: "Among the more useful data, we've obtained the blueprints of a direct-energy personal weapon." Activating her new omni-tool, she summoned a projected image of the particle rifle as a whole and separated into its components. "We are currently unsure, but we believe that with some modifications this weapon might be scaled up into a warship cannon."

"Interesting." The chancellor of Germany, who attended this summit in person, commented. A particle weapon no bigger than a standard assault rifle? Stuff like that existed only in sci-fi until now. "Please continue, overseer."

"There also were the designs for a massive super-weapon of unknown nature that, apparently, was originally developed by the races that came even before our own precursors, the Inusannon." Vahsan's omni-tool projected a new image, this time showing a ...thing that looked like a huge sphere with four long mechanical arms attached to it. "These blueprints are incomplete, though: the activation mechanism of this super-weapon requires something that is referred to only as 'the catalyst'. The scientists of the Prothean Empire have been unable to determine its nature."

"This is unfortunate indeed." The Japanese ambassador remarked. "But it would be foolish to discard this completely. One day we might find the information about this 'catalyst' and finally complete this super-weapon. And, who knows, it might be the thing that would let us win against the Reapers." There were murmurs of agreement among the summit.

"Agreed." The representative of the United States said. Then he addressed Vashan: "Overseer Khalim, is there any other information obtained from your communication beacon that you believe to be important enough to be presented to this body at this time?" There was a lengthy pause, before the Prothean woman spoke:

"Two, actually." At the man's nod, she elaborated: "First, according to one of the battle logs, a lesser Reaper vessel was destroyed during a battle in a star system belonging to the Argos Rho cluster. The destroyed Reaper vessel then fell onto an icy planet, not unlike Jupiter's moon Europe, and sunk to the bottom of the ocean. While it is most likely that the husk has since been recovered by the Reapers themselves, this is a proof that conventional weapons can destroy the Reapers."

"Those are some good news." The UAR ambassador stated. "You can't win a war against an enemy that you yourself believe to be invincible."

"Indeed." Overseer Vashan agreed. "This message was intended to raise the morale of the remaining Prothean Empire's soldiers and the civilian militia." Making a short pause, she continued: "The second message that I believe to be of a great importance state that there might be a large Prothean cryogenic facility somewhere here." Her omni-tool projected a galaxy map with a large red dot over a star cluster some four kilo-parsecs away from the Sol system. "No further information about the facility's location can be found, aside from the fact that it is located on some garden world. I believe that, you should consider a search for this facility when the colonization efforts are conducted in this cluster."

"That sounds promising. We will keep our eyes open for any remnants of your people when we reach these systems." The USA representative said.

"Thank you, ambassador." Vashan replied with a small bow while silently praying that some people at that facility were still alive.

"And this body thanks you for your report, overseer Khalim." The deputy secretary-general of UN said. "We shall not take any more of your valuable time, overseer." With nod of appreciation, the Prothean representative headed out of the chamber, followed closely by her 'escorts'.

* * *

That's all, folks  
Read and Review!


	3. A step out of the Cradle

Here's the third chapter. Enjoy!

 *** Review response**:  
 **Impstar** , well, Human-Prothean alliance be quite different from Systems Alliance form canon. Even the compositions of their navies will differ. Actually, you'll get the first glimpses of that in this chapter.  
 **edboy4926** , **TomorrowsHerald** , **Shin1gam1** , **MEEKVERSEFAN2.0** , **Gyre** , **FranticHamster** , **davycrockett100** , **OMAC001** , **Dragonfire781** , **JPElles** , **BigWilly526** , **Tirion I** , thank you for your reviews, folks!  
 **shadowrwriter** , IMO Protheans were more like Quarians - too meritocratic to have gender-based segregation. As for codex... I don't want to invent too much about the Protheans, so there won't be (much) about their culture or whatever. Though, I might still do some and insert it into the story proper when Javik is unearthed. As for AIs... Whatever we have right now would look positively DUMB when compared to Avina - itself no the brightest AI in the settings. And I don't foresee any breakthroughs in the near future. In other words, humanity's 'AIs' are actually worse than ME VIs.  
 **roughstar333** , considering that there are only 12 of them right now? It's not like they can rebuild their Empire with this much. So, who knows, one of them might become a king to Hanar ;)  
 **Radji** , kind of: Collector will start going after humans (and Protheans that hang around them) way before 2180s. On the other hand, humanity was space-faring for only 40 years in canon when Collectors 'chose' them as the source for the newest Reaper. Here, the humanity will be building its resources up in relative isolation for some time, before introducing itself to the galactic community; in the end, it might be more than those 40 years between the humanity's first interstellar flight and a 'war' with Collectors.  
 **Watcher123** , while there will be no "overnight" leaps in technological levels, 15 years might still be too quick for going from chemically-powered rockets to Mass-Effect interstellar travel...  
 **ssv warsaw** , I actually have no plan on having any version of the "Relay 314" incident taking place in the story at any point.

 *** AN**: I'd like to issue a _challenge _ to you, my dear readers.  
For this challenge, you will have to write a crossover between " _ **Mass Effect**_ " and " _ **Aoki Hagane no Arpeggio**_ " where Thanatonium/Graviton technology of the Fleet of Fog was originally developed by Nazara during the last days of their war against the Reapers as an alternative to the Mass Effect technology. Admiralty Code here would be an AI in charge of determining, whether the sapients of whatever planet it landed onto are worthy of this technology and, thus, the Fleet of Fog is this AI's instrument for testing the humanity.  
If the Sovereign ever makes an appearance in your story, the minds of Nazara people inside it should recognize their technology and rein up the Reaper to let the Alliance kill it and grant them freedom in death.

* * *

 ** _Disclaimer_** _: I_ _DO NOT_ _own "_ ** _Mass Effect_** _"_ _franchise._ No profit is being made. Same goes for any books, video games, anime or manga I may or may not use for ideas.

"speaking"  
' _thinking_ '  
" _speech not understood by humans_ "

* * *

 **Guides for the Young  
chapter ****3: A Step out of the Cradle**

The stellar age for the humanity began with the establishment of the Sol Alliance, the representative body for both the Earth nations (as well as any future colonies) and the remaining Protheans. The Alliance's economical and political power came from the UN backing, while many of the highly advanced technologies as well as the star charts of the known galaxy came from the Protheans.

At the moment of its establishment, the Alliance had access to only two FTL-capable vessels, both of which were Prothean shuttles recovered from Mars. But it wasn't going to stay like that for very long: with countless scientists and engineers all over the world working tirelessly to uncover the secrets of the Mass Effect technology, the humanity was ready to begin building its own space fleet within mere ten years.

It wasn't an armada of mighty warships that was laid down at the shipyards, though. The quickly dwindling supply of refined Element Zero from the Prothean cache – and lack of any reasonably-rich deposits of the substance in the Solar system – saw to the first ship being built being essentially a mobile mining and processing facility. And to make sure no resources mined are wasted, it would be accompanied by a multi-purpose manufacture vessel, equipped with prototype molecular assemblers.

Of course, nothing said that these mostly-civilian crafts would be unarmed or even operating without some sort of a military escort: several destroyer-carrier hybrid warships as well as their fighters were being built at the shipyards as well... The concept of such a vessel was rather new to the Protheans: while their Empire did use fighters and even dedicated carriers, the idea of attaching a few fighters to a ship so small never happened to them. Nevertheless, given how limited the supply of the available refined Element Zero was at the moment, everyone agreed that this was probably the best way to arm up the humanity's fledgling space fleet.

Once completed, this fleet would travel to the alpha of Canis Major, Sirius. While this binary star system some twelve light years away from the Earth lacked any garden worlds or even the planets that could reasonably be terraformed into something habitable, the asteroid belt there was rich with Element Zero and other resources. At least, it was so according to the data provided by the Protheans.

There was another reason why that star system was chosen: it contained a Mass Relay. A Mass Relay that could be used as the point of access to the Earth instead of the one hidden inside Pluto's moon Charon. Of course, mere twelve light years wasn't that much of a distance for any decent Mass Effect vessel, but that would still be enough to let the Earth be forewarned in case some hostile entity decided to launch an attack.

And speaking of giving warnings, it was decided against actively seeking contact with the current 'galactic' government to inform them about the Reapers: no one believed that right now such a warning would be taken seriously right now. After all, would you believe a group of aliens that appeared out of nowhere with such an outrageous claim, especially when the said group of aliens doesn't even possess enough military power to protect its own home world?

* * *

The construction of the mining 'fleet' was not an easy task – literally hundreds of the technologies that the humanity haven't even dreamed about mere two decades ago were necessary to build a Mass Effect spaceship – but in the end, after five years of hard work, the crafts were finally ready. And, on July 26, 2087, the seven vessels departed from Earth.

But before the 'fleet' would head to Sirius, it made a test voyage to the Kuiper belt in order to make sure that all systems were functioning properly. Of course, not everything worked properly, but nothing that couldn't be fixed by the crews themselves in a few hours had broken... The top men of the united space agencies decided that such results were acceptable, and the fleet was allowed to begin its interstellar journey to Sirius binary star system.

This voyage took a few days, but, in the end, the fleet arrived to its destination safely. Once again, a few systems here and there had failed during the FTL jump, but, thankfully, none of them were critical and their repairs didn't take much time. Still, these failures were rather embarrassing... With the full list of the systems that needed reinforcing sent to the engineers back on Earth – hopefully, those eggheads would figure some way to deal with this problem soon – the vessels began exploring the star system they were now in.

And, even with their imperfect scanners, it quickly became clear that the Prothean had been telling the truth: the asteroid belt around Sirius B was very rich with Element Zero and light metals. A few prominent deposits of heavy and rare metal were surveyed as well. Even based on the rough estimations, these resources could cover the needs of the Earth's industries for decades to come!

The leaders of the Sol Alliance were very pleased with these findings and ordered the fleet to found a mining colony as soon as possible. And once the fleet received this order, they immediately began looking for a good place to set the base up at. They didn't have too look very far: one of the large asteroids near their current location had pretty much everything needed: a large supply of readily-available and relatively-clean water ice along with large amounts of Element Zero and light metals to be extracted. Yes, this asteroid – already dubbed Ngwenya after the oldest known mine on the Earth – was the perfect place for a mining colony.

With the location of the future colony decided upon, the four civilian vessels detached from the 'fleet' and landed on the asteroid. The mining and fabrication units immediately went to work, breaking the rocks in raw materials and converting them into building blocks necessary to construct relatively-comfortable habitats for the workers and several greenhouses to keep the colony's population supplied with fresh food and clean-er air.

In just three weeks the colony expanded from just four not-so-big ships landed next to each other into something that actually resembled a real settlement. And now that the building mostly done, the workers concentrated on doing what they've actually came here for: digging the Element Zero and other resources the Sol Alliance and its shipyards needed up.

By the mid-October of 2087, the first freight of mined and refined – not to the level of the Prothean cache, though – Element Zero was ready to be shipped to Earth. As were the freights of light metals and sheets of polymer armor. Alas, there were no freighters to haul these riches: the only vessels still capable of the trip back home were the three destroyer-carriers from the military escort. And those ships had a very limited internal space, definitely not enough to accept all this cargo.

The choice of what to load onto the warships-turned-freighters, though, was obvious: everything but Element Zero could be produced on Earth. Thus, two of the three destroyer-carriers – the third one remained in orbit around Ngwenya to watch over the colony – began their journey back to the Sol system carrying nearly seven tons of refined Element Zero each.

And seeing as the engineers had identified and likely solved at least some of the problems that caused various systems to fail during the FTL jumps, the two warships currently en-route to Earth – _**SA-SSV Dauntless**_ and _**SA-SSV Intrepid**_ – will be placed into docks for a retrofit upon their arrival. Their sister-ship, _**SA-SSV Courageous**_ , would undergo a similar retrofit at a later date...

As for what the first freight of mined Element Zero would be spent on... Aside from the two freighters that would be hauling the cargo from Ngwenya from now on, the Sol Alliance began construction of the Shields – a group of military orbital platforms that would be the Earth last line of defense against the possible attacks by alien or even rogue human forces. Finally, the nameship of the Hephaestus-class mobile shipyards was laid; while en extremely expensive project at this point, no one doubted that it would pay off in the long run.

 **~/ *** \~**

While a great deal of the Earth's population supported the Sol Alliance – or at least didn't care too much about it – there also were those who actively opposed it. And those could be split into two main group. The older one consisted of those who believed that the only chance to survive the Reapers' return is to destroy all advanced technology and hope that those mechanical monsters would dismiss humanity as a pre-spaceflight civilization.

The second group was much younger but had a noticeably-bigger supporting base. These people didn't have the problem with Prothean tech being used; no their problem with Sol Alliance stemmed from the ridiculous budget the UN gave it – those billions upon billions of dollars can and should be spent on helping the poor here on Earth!

This second group wasn't all that bad at first as the limited supply of Element Zero at least somewhat limited the Sol Alliance expenditures. That changed when the Ngwenya mines started producing humanity's own Element Zero: there now wasn't much that could reign the Sol Alliance's expenditures in. Hell, _**SA-SSV Hephaestus**_ and the Shields cost more than all wet-navy ships in service combined! This much money certainly could be better spend on improving education and health care in the third world countries.

And so these people decided that it was up to them to show the UN that extensive expansion into the galaxy should wait until all of the major problems here on Earth were solved. Had these people chosen a different method to deliver this message, they might have even been listened to. Alas, they chose vandalism or outright terrorist attacks as their method of communication with the powers that be.

Thankfully, the Sol Alliance employed competent security personnel and the attacks against the facilities were usually stopped before any serious damage to them could be made. Not that it stopped the outlaws of the anti-Alliance faction from trying again and again with different tactics...

On May 22, 2088, some crazy man installed a powerful jammer onto a Cessna, loaded it with explosives and flew it to the Element Zero processing facility in North-West Texas. _This_ was something so unexpected that only when this flying bomb was on the facility's territory something was finally done about it. Alas, it was too late by then: even if it was shot down before it could actually be rammed into the facility, the plane crash-landed right next to it, and the resulting explosion still heavily damaged the exposed systems. That, in turn, caused a major fire that led to the detonation of some less-than-stable compounds used for Element Zero processing. This explosion obliterated nearly half of the facility, killing many of the workers, and caused nearly a ton of Element Zero dust be ejected into the atmosphere.

The 'sponsors' of this attack were eventually apprehended and brought to justice, but... Meanwhile, eight months after the attack, the Sol Alliance and the Protheans got a new problem to deal with: the first of human biotics were born.

* * *

 **Codex update** :

 **Humans**  
Bipedal levo-amino-acid-based oxygen-breathing sapient mammalian species that are native to planet 'Earth' within the 'Sol' system. Humans possess great genetic, phenotypic and cultural diversities, but are unable to make the most of this due to their selfish ambitions. On the positive side, humans appear to have strong wills and great determination.  
Estimated population: 7.1 billions on 'Earth', ~1000 on the seven extraterrestrial colonies.  
Average lifespan: 83 human years.

 **Protheans**  
Bipedal levo-amino-acid-based oxygen-breathing sapient viviparous reptilian species that ruled the galaxy around 50 000 years ago. Their Empire was destroyed when the Reapers began their latest harvest, but a few Protheans managed to survive into this cycle via cryogenic stasis. Protheans have unique quad-strand DNA and possess an ability to share information – even with inanimate objects – through touch.  
Estimated population: 12 (17) confirmed survivors.  
Average lifespan: 96 human years.

 **Reapers**  
Sentient warships of an unknown origin that appear every 50-or-so thousands years to harvests all sufficiently-advanced life in the galaxy. Reapers possess incredibly-advanced technology, ability to influence and more-or-less mind-control organics, and are nearly impossible to kill.  
Estimated population: unknown.  
Average lifespan: ageless.

 **Prothean Particle Rifle**  
A personal weapon developed by Protheans during the later years of their war against the Reapers. Particle rifle requires no ammunition and fires a continuous beam of accelerated particles. The designs for the particle rifle were passed to the Humans by the surviving Protheans.

 **Particle Cannon**  
Essentially, a sized-up version of the particle rifle that was developed by Human engineers to be used for warships' guns. Unlike the particle rifle, the particle cannon fires discreet 'packages' of high-energy particles. Smaller rapid-fire particle cannons are designed for anti-fighter and anti-missile defense, while bigger ones fire much more powerful shots to inflict massive damage on relatively-stationary protected targets.

 **UFC X-62a "Space Hornet"**  
Remotely-controlled attack drone that was developed as Humans' first generation space-fighter. Despite their size, these drones pack some serious punch – the big cannon they are built around is identical to the Dauntless-class destroyers' main caliber cannons – but suffer from jerky controls and rather weak defenses. They are also a maintenance nightmare since repairing many internal components requires partial disassembling of the craft.  
Length: 10.8 meters  
Width: 2.8 meters (beam), 4.3 meters (with wings)  
Height: 2.75 meters  
Armament: 1x main particle cannon (6 shots), 2x anti-fighter particle cannons, 6x rockets.  
Crew: none

 **Dauntless-class destroyer-carrier**  
The first class of space-navy warships built by Humans. Built around the same philosophy as wet-navy Guided Missile Destroyers, these vessels can operate independently for considerable periods of time and are equipped to fight against nearly any conceivable type of a target. Their main problem is the lack of internal space and, subsequently, less-than-luxury living conditions for the crew.  
So far, three of these ships have being built: _**SA-SSV Dauntless**_ , _**SA-SSV Courageous**_ and **_SA-SSV Intrepid_**.  
Length: 140 meters  
Width: 25 meters (beam), 55 meters (with wings)  
Height: 18 meters (with fins)  
Armament: 10x main particle cannons on 5 active turrets, 80x rapid-fire particle cannons as the point defense system, 16x missile launchers  
Attack drones: 4x UFC X-62a "Space Hornet"  
Crew: 34 + 4 drone operators.

 **Project Shield**  
Project Shield is a group of large heavily armored and armed orbital platforms that would form the Earths last defense line against enemy attacks. Each of these six massive platforms positioned above the planet's equator on the geostationary orbit is roughly four time the size of an Olympic stadium and should be powerful enough to survive a battle with a dreadnought and its escorts.  
To placate the Earth's governments fearful of these mighty installations and reduce the chance of them being used against the Earth itself, no cannon aboard can be aimed at the planet's surface without a significant adjustment to the platform's positioning – something that would take at least half an hour. If nothing else, the compromised platform can be bombed to hell in this time.  
Length: 950 meters  
Width: 950 meters  
Height: 120 meters  
Armament: 240x main particle cannons on 60 active turrets, 1000x rapid-fire particle cannons as the point defense system, 120x missile launchers  
Attack drones: 240x UFC X-62a "Space Hornet"  
Crew: 8500

 **Hephaestus-class mobile shipyard**  
Essentially, this is a very large spacecraft that houses facilities necessary to construct or repair smaller vessels within its enormous internal bay. While it isn't heavily armored or armed – it isn't expected to ever find itself anywhere near the front-lines – it is still capable of a token resistance by itself.  
Length: 1200 meters  
Width: 320 meters (beam)  
Height: 320 meters  
Armament: 240x rapid-fire particle cannons as the point defense system  
Crew: 2800

* * *

That's all, folks  
Read and Review!


	4. Eden Prime

Here's the third chapter. Enjoy!

 *** Review response**:  
 **edboy4926** , **justice21** , **davycrockett100** , **Patriota1993** , **Gyre** , **Watcher123** , **serialkeller** , **BalakWing** , **Beriothien** , **reality deviant** , **Shin1gam1** , **Deathus** , thank you for your reviews, folks!  
 **roughstar333** , not really, there are the Protheans to train and guide them. It will be more like the things are in the Turian Hierarchy: biotics are certainly not easily accepted, but they also aren't hunted down like 'demons' or some other such nonsense.  
 **Radji** , pick one thing - any thing - and you will likely find a group of extremists that hate it. C'est la vie.  
 **LordGhostStriker** , then, I hope this chapter will satisfy you a little. 

* * *

**_Disclaimer_** _: I_ _DO NOT_ _own "_ ** _Mass Effect_** _"_ _franchise._ No profit is being made. Same goes for any books, video games, anime or manga I may or may not use for ideas.

"speaking"  
' _thinking_ '  
" _speech not understood by humans_ "

* * *

 **Guides for the Young  
chapter ****4: Eden Prime  
**

With the establishment of the Ngwenya colony the humans gained access to the vast lodes of Element Zero and other valuable resources, the Sol Alliance's space navy began growing rapidly. Within just a single decade three whole fleets – which summed up to almost a hundred battle-ready warships – have been built. Most of these vessels were destroyer-carriers of various projects, but several 'light' and three 'heavy' cruisers (that acted as fleets' flagships) were put into operation as well. No plans to build bigger frontline warships have been made. And there was no real need for such vessels either: unlike mass accelerators, particle cannons needn't be kilometer-long monstrosities to achieve top-notch firepower.

Even though the 2090s humanity spent accumulating the power necessary to expand beyond the nearest neighborhood of the Sol system, quite a few expeditions to the nearest stars were still sent off. And by 2096, all systems within twenty light years have been explored and an automated listening post was deployed within each. No garden worlds have been found – just like the Prothean data said – yet, two research colonies were still founded in Alsafi and Gliese 876 star systems... These days of laid-back exploration ended early in February 2099 when the higher-ups of the Sol Alliance finally decided that they were ready to send an expedition into the unknown that lay beyond the Sirius Relay.

And so, on March 1, 2099 the Exploration Fleet departed from the Ngwenya colony... This fleet consisted of forty warships with the heavy cruiser _**SA-SSV New York**_ as their flagship, and a dozen of science vessels. One of those science vessels even had five of the eleven remaining Protheans – senior geneticist Anur Jadock has passed away from old age in 2096 – inboard.

The fleet's first task was activation of the currently-dormant Mass Relay hanging on the outskirts of the star system. And despite the mind-boggling complexity of the megastructure itself, a single simple command was enough to bring it back online. Once it was confirmed that the Relay was reactivated successfully, one of the fleet's destroyers – _**SA-SSV Amatsukaze**_ – approached it. Then, using the control codes lifted from the Prothean shuttle's computer, it interfaced with the giant alien construct. Almost immediately, a blue lightning-like tendril of energy extended from the brightly-glowing Mass Effect core at the heart of the Relay and attached itself to the vessel. A blink of an eye later, _**SA-SSV Amatsukaze**_ was gone.

Less than an hour after its disappearance, the destroyer contacted the fleet. Apparently, the Relay has transported them to the heart of the Arcturus Stream, the mighty Arcturus itself. Also, according to the scans done by _**SA-SSV Amatsukaze**_ , the star system they've ended up in contained more than one Mass Relay, all of them – sans the one they've arrived through – dormant. With no hostilities within the destroyers detection radius, the rest of the Exploration Fleet was given permission to go through the Relay as well. And so, for the first time in its history, humanity reached beyond the local stars...

* * *

While Arcturus system itself was poor on resources, the Mass Relays it housed connected many star clusters; whoever controlled this transportation hub also controlled a large region of the galaxy around it. With that in mind, the Alliance sent nearly a third of the Colonies Defense fleet to 'occupy' the system until some more permanent defenses could be established there... Meanwhile, the Exploration fleet was ordered to continue its original mission and, well, explore the stars. And for the time being, the fleet concentrated its efforts on locating the garden worlds and other perspective places for colonies within this cluster's systems.

The star maps lifted from the Prothean shuttles' navigational computers, despite not being exactly accurate anymore, were still a great help. Thanks to them, human explorers quickly found a garden world orbiting the star named Euler. This planet – dubbed Benning – was slightly bigger than Earth and noticeably more arid. It also was uncomfortably-hot in lower latitudes. Yet, according to the scans, the local biosphere could support the less-demanding Earth-native lifeforms. And because of that, Benning was flagged as the prime candidate for the first wave of colonization.

A little further away from the heart of the cluster, another 'garden' world was discovered. This uncomfortably chilly by human standards world, Seker, possessed an ammonia-based ecology and its native life was just beginning to crawl out of the oceans. While undoubtedly ill-suited for colonization, this world was a real treasure for biologists of every stripe. So, an automated research outpost was established on the planet's moon to observe and study the unique life native to this world.

Even further away from the Relay one more planet of great interest was found; a super-Earth-sized hothouse garden world that orbited around an F-class subgiant star that, technically, wasn't a part of the Arcturus Stream. Hot and humid, this planet was covered by nigh-endless swamps and jungles – a trait that resulted in it being named "Amazonia". This lush and diverse vegetation was glorious, but wasn't the most amazing thing about this world: a probe sent to take a closer look at the planet revealed that there was sentient life there!

According to the recorded footage, the people of this world evolved from some sort of leopard-like creatures and lived in a pre-industrial societies that were broadly similar to Mesoamerican civilizations prior to Spanish invasion. That said, ruins of ancient cities that the probe spotted during the further investigation of the planet suggested that the Amazonia's civilizations haven't really advanced all that much in the last several centuries. And, quite likely, it would be at least a couple of millenniums before the local people launched their "Sputnik".

Upon learning about this discovery, the leadership of the Sol Alliance immersed itself in heated debates regarding the fate of Amazonia. In the end, it was decided that this world should be left to develop and advance at its own rate, without any interference from the Alliance. Or independent explorers. Thus, the Amazonia's star system wasn't included into the publicly-available star maps and the knowledge of this planet's existence would remain highly-classified until the children of that world broke the silence themselves... As for the crews of the Exploration fleet's vessels that made this discovery, they had to swear an oath of non-disclosure.

* * *

Having investigated all star systems within a reasonable distance from the Mass Relay, the Exploration fleet returned to Arcturus. The system was yet to gain a stronghold of its own – it took nearly a decade to build the Shields around the Earth – but the Sol Alliance was working hard to build one there as soon as possible. A skeleton of a giant space station orbiting the star could already be seen, as well as several small asteroids that were being harvested for the raw materials necessary to construct the aforementioned space station.

The Exploration fleet wasn't there to assist with those massive construction works, though. After a quick pit-stop on Eunomia to refill their nearly-exhausted stores of food, water and fuel, the fleet traveled to the dormant Mass Relays on the edge of the system.

Once again, the activation of the Relay proved to be an easy task. Someone even joked that their creators built them this way on purpose... Anyhow, this freshly-activated Relay sent the Exploration fleet to a star system some four kilo-parsecs away from Sol. This star system had five planets, and the second one was a vibrant-green garden world so similar to Earth that it was immediately dubbed Eden Prime by the pioneers. And detailed scans of the planet revealed something even more interesting!..

While quite weak and easily to miss, an active power source could be detected on the surface of the planet! Or, to be more precise, that power source was some twenty meters below the surface... Either way, it looked like this was the only piece of technology on this world. Which, in the minds of the Exploration fleet commanders, could have only one logical explanation: they've discovered ancient installations build by unknown-as-of-yet aliens.

And while this was little more than a guess, quite a few Exploration fleet commanding officers believed that they have accidentally stumbled upon the Prothean cryogenic facilities that overseer Vashan Khalim had been talking about... And even if they were wrong and these installations were built not by Protheans but by some other alien race, this was still a great discovery.

But before the true nature of this discovery could be established, twenty meters of soil needed to be removed. And that wasn't something that could be easily done with manual labor. Thus, a small mining vessel capable of operating within an atmosphere was requested.

Thanks to Eden Prime being located within a gateway system – a system with an activated Mass Relay, in other words – the summoned vessel was there just a few hours after the transfer paperwork had been processed. With it, the first nineteen meters of soil over the discovered anomaly were removed within a single 64-hours-long Eden Prime's day... The final meter, however, had to be dug manually: using the heavy mining equipment this close to the priceless artifacts of the past was just too much of a risk.

Finally after two more (local) days of hard work, a small part of the installations was finally unearthed. And it was immediately identified as something of Prothean origin. Alas, the dug up part was just an armored outer wall of some sort of a bunker. To get inside of it, one needed to either continue excavating in hopes of finding a working door, or to throw subtlety aside and cut a hole through this armor. The brute force approach, of course, was an ill-advised course of action: no only there was a good chance that this would activate some sort of an automated security system, the flames from the plasma cutter could also seriously damage whatever precious things that were stored inside this bunker. Thus, shovels in hands, the crews of several Exploration fleet ships continued to dig...

 **~/ *** \~**

Overseer Vashan Khalim was one very busy Prothean woman these days: in addition to her seat on the Sol Alliance's parliament, she was overseeing several of the most important ongoing projects, including the training of the first-generation human biotics and the project Phoenix. Thus, she was not happy when she was told that she was required at Eden Prime, posthaste.

"I hope you have you have a good reason to summon me here." Stepping out of the shuttle, she growled at an officer that was greeting her and her entourage of four human Alliance officials at the 'landing pad'. Pausing for a moment, Vashan stretched her senses and surveyed the area. She could pick several active pieces of Prothean technology nearby, but that alone was a reason good enough to drag her away from her duties back on Earth – the Exploration fleet did have five of her people within the ranks, after all.

"We believe we do, ma'am." The officer replied, bringing her back to the reality. "Please follow me." Letting out an entirely-too-human sigh, overseer Vashan allowed herself to be guided past a small cantonment and several unloaded crates to the edge of the dig site. From there, she could already see the entrance into a huge and obviously-Prothean-built bunker. Presumably, this was the cryogenic facility that the beacon on Mars spoke of. If it indeed was so, she could see why the Explanation fleet summoned her there.

"How many have you found?" She asked her 'guide' – based on the insignia the man was wearing, he was one of the non-commissioned officers from the light cruiser _**SA-SSV London**_ – as they began descending into the quarry-like dig site.

"The exploration of the facility is difficult: it suffered serious structural damage and there are multiple cave ins." The man replied. "There are also numerous signs of battle that lead us to believe that the bunker had been compromised and attacked from the inside. So far, we've found only one undamaged stasis pod that still has power."

"I see..." Vashan said after a long pause. "Do you believe that there might be more active stasis pods in there?" She asked then.

"We certainly can't discard such a possibility, but..." Her guide replied. "All signs point towards the inside attack on the facility originating from the part we haven't explored yet. I'd say that finding any surviving pods there is unlikely." After a couple of moments, he added: "I'm sorry."

"It's alright." The Prothean woman replied. The rest of the walk to an army tent next to the entrance into the facility was spent in silence.

* * *

Inside the tent, overseer Vashan found all five of her men that went with the Exploration fleet and several armed human officers standing around a large table with black coffin-like stasis pod on it. And while this pod was somewhat different from what she herself had used to avoid being killed in a Reaper attack against her outpost on Mars, the Prothean woman was sure that opening it up won't be a problem. Dealing with whoever was inside, on the other hand...

"Are we releasing the stasis?" Vashan asked.

"At your command, overseer." One of her men, Saron Amenth, replied. And once he received a nod from his commander, he walked up to the stasis pod and opened a control panel hidden under the layer of scorched armor plating. A relatively-simple command later, the thawing process began...

A couple of minutes later – though, it certainly felt like hours – the two-leaved lid of the stasis pod opened, revealing the Prothean inside. And he was a warrior, that much could be said even without taking his dark-red battle armor or his particle rifle into account.

"I think, he's waking up..." Overseer Vashan observed as the warrior's eyes began moving under his eyelids, indicating that he was breaking free from Morpheus's grasp. "Everyone, be on guard!" She commanded, while surrounding herself with the strongest biotic barrier she could muster. "We have no idea how he will react to us upon his awakening; he might be ...a bit violent." No sooner than she said that, the awakened Prothean snapped his eyes open while releasing an unfocused but very powerful omnidirectional biotic shockwave nigh-simultaneously.

Vashan and her men were relatively unaffected by this as their barriers took the brunt of this 'attack'. The humans present in the tent, though, weren't as lucky and got thrown off their feet like rag dolls. And while everyone was recovering from this, the awakened warrior clumsily climbed out of his pod and tumbled around – until Saron caught him. The two Protheans stared at each other, the clothes they were wearing preventing them from reading each other through _the touch_.

" _I am glad to see that the Empire has not fallen._ " The warrior spoke. " _Overseer Pashek Vran be blessed, the Crucible his men built defeated the formidable foe that the Reapers have been._ "

" _I wish that was the case._ " Vashan spoke. " _Alas, the Reapers have destroyed the Empire._ "

" _Yet, you are still here._ " The awakened Prothean pointed out. Then, pulling himself free from Saron's grasp, he eyed the humans, most of whom were still recovering from the effects of his biotic blast. " _And what about these primitives?_ "

" _The young ones_." Overseer Khalim corrected him. " _Humans are our allies, and, I insist, you show them proper respect, soldier._ " The two Protheans then stared at each other. After maybe half a minute, the yet-unnamed warrior backed off a bit, accepting his 'defeat' in this opposition of opinions. After a few moments, he asked his next question:

" _If the Empire is no more, how come you are here?_ " Crossing her arms on her chest, Vashan replied:

" _We did the same thing your people attempted: we slept through the Reaper invasion. And, apparently, just like it has happened here, Reaper attacks left automatic ending of the cryogenic stasis impossible._ " Making a short pause to take a breath, she continued: " _When the humans began exploring beyond their home world, they've discovered our bunker and managed to successfully wake us up. Since then, we've been working together to, hopefully, assert our right to live when the Reapers return._ "

" _I see._ " The just-awakened Prothean said. " _And how many of our people is there now?_ " He asked then.

" _There were twelve who made it out of the stasis._ " Vashan said. " _And one of us has since perished of old age._ " Her worlds were followed by a long moments of silence.

" _And how many of my men have you found in this facility?_ " He asked next. A few uneasy moments later, overseer Khalim gave him an answer:

" _So far, we've found only one stasis pod that was both intact and with power in this bunker: yours. And, based on the damage to the facility, it is rather unlikely that someone else managed to make it to this cycle._ " The yet-unnamed warrior was silent for quite a while: apparently, learning that out of the million-strong force that was supposed to seal themselves in this facility until the Reapers return to the Dark Space he alone survived was quite a shock for him.

" _I see... only twelve of our people survived? That's definitely not enough to rebuild the Empire with._ "

" _And weren't the unitarianism of the Empire and its slow adaptation to new circumstances the reasons for its fall?_ " The female Prothean asked back. " _No, the alliance we have with the humans right now will remain unchanged in its form._ " There was a noticeable pause, before she added: " _And our people aren't dying out just yet. A few more months, and project Phoenix will be completed, raising our numbers tenfold!_ " Noticing that her converser was already beginning to scheme something, she supplemented: " _We will preserve the Prothean cultural legacy as best as possible, but our imperialism should go – if we don't change with the times, our second fall will be unavoidable._ " There was another long silence during which the two Protheans were staring each other down. And, somehow, Vashan again won the showdown.

" _My task was to rebuild the Empire, once the Reapers went back to the Dark Space; we would have risen again, a million strong, and we would have built up, we would have conscripted lesser races into an army that would have stopped those machines when they finally decided to show up in our galaxy again._ " The awakened warrior said, an angry green aura of biotics building up around him. " _Yet, here you deny me the chance to rebuild the Empire and make an army that would end the Reapers! You take away my very purpose!_ " Overseer Khalim didn't appear to be much intimidated by that display of power, though.

" _You're a warrior; someone who had actually faced the Reapers and lived to tell the tale._ " She replied. " _We're just scientists. None of us has ever fought a real battle. And while we may be able to rebuild our technology, we can't teach our allies – humans – about what they will be facing one the Reapers return to the galaxy. Technology alone won't have us prepared to fight the Reapers; and so we need your experience. Join us and help the galaxy prepare to fight for its right to live._ "

" _Being a glorified teacher wasn't my purpose._ " The still-unnamed Prothean replied. " _But, I suppose, this is better than just fading away, denied even the chance to do the mission my men have entrusted me with... Very well, I shall lend you my knowledge and my experience. Let the voice of Prothean Empire the last thing the Reapers will hear when they return._ " He said. Then, there was a pause, before he introduced himself: " _I'm known as Javik, the Avatar of Vengeance._ "

 **~/ *** \~**

"Honored ladies and gentlemen." Overseer Vashan Khalim addressed the assembly between the UN representatives and the Sol Alliance parliament. "Today I bring some troubling news to your attention." Waiting a few seconds to have the murmurs go away, she continued: "As you all are no doubt aware, several month ago a Prothean cryostasis facility was unearthed on the world of Eden Prime. The only survivor from that facility was a warrior named Javik. Based on the information he had provided us with, the remains of a Reaper destroyer were discovered within a gas giant Borr in the nearby star system. The scientific vessels of the Exploration fleet have investigated these remains, and they've discovered something really unsettling." Making a small pause, she continued: "According to the results they've gotten, the armor of Reaper vessels is identical in composition to the material used in Mass Relays – and here we're talking about something that no one in the present or past cycles was able to produce in industrial quantities. The two best explanations for this are the following: the Mass Relays were built either by whatever entity created the Reapers, or by the Reapers themselves. And neither of those spells anything good for us."

"Those indeed are very troubling news." The USA representative said. "If what you've just said is true, than it appears that we all have been subtly encouraged to follow a certain predetermined path in our technological development – a path that allows the Reapers to know our weaknesses and exploit them."

"Indeed." The People's Republic of China delegate agreed. "And I have to say that the Mass Relays and Mass Effect technology are just so useful and easy that no one will even think about developing alternatives once they discover it."

"But we now know that this all is likely just a single huge trap to allow the Reapers an easy harvest of space-faring civilizations." Vashan said. "And since we are now aware of it, we might be able to devise countermeasures before the Reapers return from the Dark Space."

"But, developing some alternative means of FTL travel will take decades if not centuries." One of the Sol Alliance parliamentarians spoke. "We might not have that much time left. And those remains of a Reaper show us that despite being caught in this Mass Effect trap, we still can fight and win. Maybe, we should instead concentrate of shoring our defenses and strengthening our fleets?"

"That is something that we should do regardless." Overseer Khalim agreed. "Especially since we now have a chance to reverse-engineer Reaper armaments. But, don't forget that if the Reapers are indeed the creators or a sibling creation to the Mass Relays, they might have the means to manipulate the Relays to their own ends. Divide and conquer – that is the strategy they can employ against us easily, and without alternative means of FTL travel our stranded fleets won't be able to protect our worlds when the Reapers show up in force."

"So, you propose, we start developing our own, Mass Effect independent, means of FTL travel?" The representative of Germany asked. "That certainly would be a colossal undertaking."

"But it also may be the one thing that will let us survive the Reaper invasion."

* * *

 **Codex update** :

 **Alsafi / Sigma Draconis  
** Alsafi is a main sequence orange star, a part of Draco constellation, that is located roughly 19 light years away from Earth. Alsafi is slightly smaller than Sol and only about 43% as luminous; it's also considered a slightly metal-poor star. It has three planets, none of which are exceptionally hospitable to carbon-based life. Still, the second planet, a Mars-like cold rock with a thin atmosphere of carbon oxides – dubbed Al-Khojandi after one of Arabian astronomers and inventors – was chosen as the home for a scientific base that builds and live-tests prototypical spaceship weapon systems for the Sol Alliance fleets.

 **Gliese 876  
** Gliese 876 is a red dwarf star located approximately 15 light-years away from Earth in the constellation of Aquarius. It has four planets, with a Saturn-like gas giant orbiting within the star's habitable zone. Alas, all of this planet's satellites are small dead rocks. That didn't stop the Sol Alliance from establishing a small scientific base on one of those satellites. The purpose of this base is to study the evolution of stars and planetary systems.

 **UFC X-67c "Space Hornet Mk II"**  
An improved version of the original "Space Hornet" attack drone. Slightly bigger that its predecessor, it has significantly better armor and slightly stronger weapons. Most importantly, though, it is responds much better to operator's commands, thanks to an on-board VI counteracting the native jerkiness of the drone's controls... That said, maintenance of this craft is still a nightmare.  
Length: 10.9 meters  
Width: 4 meters  
Height: 2.8 meters  
Armament: 1x main particle cannon (8 shots), 2x anti-fighter particle cannons, 6x rockets.  
Crew: none

 **Steadfast-class destroyer-carrier**  
Second-generation destroyer-carriers the designs of which addressed the majority of shortcoming found in their predecessors, the Dauntless-class. Steadfast-class vessels possess upgraded defenses and more powerful armaments. Crew's living conditions have been improved as well.  
Length: 154 meters  
Width: 28 meters (beam), 62 meters (with wings)  
Height: 19 meters (with fins)  
Armament: 12x main particle cannons on six active turrets, 80x rapid-fire particle cannons as the point defense system, 16x missile launchers  
Attack drones: 4x UFC X-67c "Space Hornet Mk II"  
Crew: 34 + 4 drone operators.

 **Yukikaze-class destroyer-carrier  
** Another class of second-generation destroyer-carriers. With stronger emphasis on the 'carrier' aspect. The nameship of this class was named after the luckiest warship of WWII, probably in hopes that the vessels of this class would share that luck.  
Length: 158 meters  
Width: 30 meters (beam), 60 meters (with wings)  
Height: 19 meters (with fins)  
Armament: 10x main particle cannons on five active turrets, 80x rapid-fire particle cannons as the point defense system, 12x missile launchers  
Attack drones: 8x UFC X-67c "Space Hornet Mk II"  
Crew: 34 + 8 drone operators.

 **Geneva-class 'light' cruiser  
** While not as fast and maneuverable as destroyer-carriers, cruisers possess noticeably-tougher defenses and much greater firepower, which should enable them to dish out some serious punishment even under heavy enemy fire.  
Length: 320 meters  
Width: 50 meters (beam), 90 meters (with wings)  
Height: 23 meters (with fins)  
Armament: 24x main particle cannons on eight active turrets, 120x rapid-fire particle cannons as the point defense system, 20x missile launchers  
Attack drones: 16x UFC X-67c "Space Hornet Mk II"  
Crew: 52 + 16 drone operators.

 **Cairo-class 'heavy' cruisers  
** Bigger, tougher and better armed than Geneva-class light cruisers, these ships serve as the flagships of Sol Alliance's three fleets. _**SA-SSV Berlin**_ for the Earth Defense Fleet, _**SA-SSV Cairo**_ for the Colonies Defense Fleet and _**SA-SSV New York**_ for the Exploration Fleet.  
Length: 380 meters  
Width: 58 meters (beam), 94 meters (with wings)  
Height: 25 meters (with fins)  
Armament: 32x main particle cannons on eight active turrets, 160x rapid-fire particle cannons as the point defense system, 30x missile launchers  
Attack drones: 20x UFC X-67c "Space Hornet Mk II"  
Crew: 58 + 20 drone operators.

 **Rmar-Akath**  
Bipedal levo-amino-acid-based oxygen-breathing sapient species originating from planet Amazonia (native name, Shakith). No Rmar-Akath has ever been studied directly, but the observation data that had been collected by automatic probes suggests that their kind originates from feline creatures rather similar to Earth's leopards. Rmar-Akath population is scattered throughout many independent city-states and their technology is generally on the level of late Iron Age. Probably thanks to their feline ancestors, Rmar-Akath are both agile and physically strong. Their average height seems to be around 7'3'' and their average weight is approximated at a little over 350 pounds.  
Estimated population: 140 millions.  
Average lifespan: _not enough data_.

* * *

That's all, folks  
Read and Review!


	5. The Second Contact

Here's the fifth chapter and the final chapter of this story. Enjoy!

 *** Review response**:  
 **LordGhostStriker** , **Impstar** , **davycrockett100** , **Penny is wise** , **Geasszero** , **jabbarulez** , **SamMason666** , **edboy4926** , **Gyre** , **Ioialoha** , **TrialWriter246** , **FlawlessMirage** , **silvereagle2121** , **tylermech66** , **Casje** , **tf330129** , **moon so bright** , **Darksider** , **GodEmporer** , **Tyrhineld** , thank you for your reviews, folks!  
 **Legionary Prime** , **0rigami** , I'll try to avoid the common mistakes, but... Well...  
 **reality deviant** , **Destructo Wolf** , no idea, actually. There might be, there might be not... I'm leaving it out of this story's scope, thought.  
 **hornet07** , if you haven't noticed, the Alliance's (space) navy here tends to prefer generalist designs over specialist ones. The destroyers I gave them are a space variation of aircraft-carrying guided missile destroyers, and cruisers are scaled up versions of those. Perhaps, the closes analogue would be Soviet Union's Kiev-class aircraft carriers/cruisers.  
 **Radji** , as interesting as exploring the life on those worlds would be, it won't happen in this story. sorry?  
 **Watcher123** , yes, the virtual aliens existed in 'canon', but that happened in 2180s... Right now, its 2100s in my story, so no, virtual aliens won't be appearing yet. As won't Raloi or any other similarly-advanced races.  
 **FranticHamster** , oversized might not be exactly correct term here, though. Yes, the cores of human ships are relatively large, but not THAT large... The shields of Alliance's destroyers can take as much punishment as those of Turain cruisers only because they envelop much smaller vessels and, therefore, are denser. If the absolute strength of kinetic barrier fields were compared, Alliance's would be found 'lacking'. Then again, we're comparing a destroyer to a cruiser here...  
 **Guest** #1, well, hopefully, I didn't make the Citadel-space races too incompetent here... But... Salarian spies don't reach that deep into the uncharted space. Still, the Citadel **IS** forewarned (a little), when Alliance finally decides to reveal itself.  
 **Blackholelord** , This story ends - in my plans, at least - just as Alliance makes first official contact with the Citadel. So that will be left out of the scope of this story. For now, at least.  
 **Lord Xantos A. Fowl** , and how? The Protheans 'rescued' are a few biologists, a couple of guards and a veteran warrior. They can't provide much of a kick-start for the development of alternative Relays. Ilos team were professional engineers and physicists; and even then it took them decades if not generations to build a single working prototype. Imagine the amount of work and resources the creation of alternative Relay network would require. I'm, for one, sure that even united galactic society can afford such expenses.  
 **GaiaStrike** , this chapter should answer those questions. But, in short, those are still in the test stage at the labs. It's still 80 (!) years before ME canon, after all.  
 **Tiggx42** , Destructo Wolf, while I don't plan to actually develop that story-line, I envision the alternative FTL travel method as (most likely Eezo-assisted) warp drive. Building an independent Relay network, even if all necessary technologies are available, would require economic might no single race in ME possesses.  
 **magnusvictor** , there actually at least one more story where the first contact is with Protheans - but it's during the Rome empire there... As for warships and their crews; yes, the crews - at least for cruisers - might be too small. Let's take a middle ground and say those are skeleton crews - Alliance needs as many warships active as possible, and staffing them all with full crews might be just impossible at this point. Still, you are probably right and I should triple those numbers... At least.  
 **enji-benjy** , remote scanning. As far as I know, indoctrination doesn't quite work on drones that don't even possess VIs. And knowing the material composition and relative placement of all components of systems allows for a good educated guess on how that system works. From there, with enough (virtual) experiments, one can figure out how to replicate, say, a Reaper armaments.

 *** AN**: Wow, just wow. I've never expected this little project of mine to become even half as popular as it did.  
Thank you all for reading and reviewing my story.

As a matter of fact, I decided to try and answer my own challenge posted earlier in this very story: a " _ **Mass Effect**_ " / " _ **Aoki Hagane no Arpeggio**_ " fusion. I'll make no promises on when this one will be published, if I get it going well enough to be published at all.

* * *

 ** _Disclaimer_** _: I_ _DO NOT_ _own "_ ** _Mass Effect_** _"_ _franchise._ No profit is being made. Same goes for any books, video games, anime or manga I may or may not use for ideas.

"speaking"  
' _thinking_ '  
" _speech not understood by humans_ "

* * *

 **Guides for the Young  
chapter ****5: The Second Contact  
**

It has been four months since his awakening and Javik was quickly changing his opinion about the primitives. Much to his annoyance, he couldn't even really call them 'primitives'. Even in his own mind. Yes, the humans weren't as advanced as the Empire was during its days of glory – hell, a significant part of their home world was still using combustion engines! – but at the same time they weren't blindly incorporating the new technologies.

No, the humans studied those technologies and did their best to both understand the inner workings of those technologies and to improve upon the existing designs. Sometimes, they even managed to create something beyond what the Empire had achieved before its final fall. The cannons of their warships were a prime example of such tech: the Prothean engineers of his days never succeeded in building a direct energy weapons of this size and power.

And then there was the fact that the human were not only doing their best to prepare for the Reapers' arrival, but they were also trying to bring his people back: the project Phoenix was just that, the Prothean race rising from its ashes. Was all this something primitives would do? No. Primitives would never look beyond their own immediate benefit. Humans, on the other hand, were helping back... Still, Javik just couldn't make himself think of them as Protheans' equals.

Perhaps, overseer Vashan found the best way to describe them: the 'young' ones – those who were a capable civilization already, but not yet big and mighty enough to be a great galactic power like the Protheans were during the golden days of their Empire.

Back to the human technologies, though. As the avatar of Vengeance, someone whose entire life was dedicated to making the Reapers pay for what they've done to his people, Javik, of course, was most interested in the weapons and military powers of the ...'young'. And, while he would probably never admit it aloud, he was pleasantly surprised by what he saw.

Ergonomics better suited for someone with five fingers on their hands aside, the human-made particle rifles were in fact superior to the ones the Prothean soldiers, including the elite ones, carried into the battles during the closing days of their war against the Reapers. In fact, the human-made particle rifles were good enough for Javik to _voluntary_ pick one as the replacement for his 'original' arms.

Comparing Prothean and human military technologies was a little more difficult when it came to battle armors: those were only made for the humans and the awakened warrior of the Empire couldn't just try one on. Still, the shield generators they were using were... different, perhaps? Yes, different. They required more energy than 'standard' kinetic barriers to achieve same strength when it came to blocking physical projectiles, but they stopped shots from direct energy weapons as well.

The human-made omni-tools and other computers also were hard to compare with what Javik was familiar with. For once, he was a soldier, not an engineer. Thus, even if he knew how to repair most of his equipment in the field, he had only minimal understanding of how those things actually worked. Still, as far as he could see, the human-made electronics were pretty good, despite being quite alien to him in their designs.

Finally, there was the Sol Alliance's navy. At first, Javik was incredibly confused why humans decided to build their ships like they did. Even with the particle cannons making the spinal mass accelerators unnecessary, the idea of a small multi-purpose vessel still didn't make all that much sense to him: the idea that the fleet should have powerful dreadnaughts at its core with numerous cruisers and frigates supporting them was just too ingrained in his being. Though, once he had read up on the history of human wars to better understand whom he was training to be this cycle's Reaper killers, the avatar of Vengeance got an insight into what directed humans to build their warships the way they did. He still didn't agree with their ideas, but now he could at least see where those were coming from...

And, yes, he was training a group of human elite soldiers in hopes of preparing the to the horror that a war against the Reapers was. After all, there were no guarantees that the machine devils will (finally) show on the galaxy's doorstep before he grew too old to fight. And if he himself couldn't do that, than someone else needed to do it. And this way, even if he perished by the time the Reapers arrive, the vengeance would still be his!

Regardless of his thoughts on not being able to have his revenge against those monsters that all but ended his people personally, Javik was quite impressed with the human soldiers he was training. Then again, these men and women were the best of the best the human forces had to offer; it would be kinda sad if they weren't any good...

Most of his 'students' were from the heavy infantry divisions. The shock troops, equipped with sealed environment battle suits with heavy armor and powerful kinetic barriers. They pretty much were the walking tanks, and the heavy weapons they were armed with did nothing to change that image. And since their power armor was using hardware neuro-controls for locomotion, hacking was nigh-useless against them, leaving their somewhat-low mobility as their only weak point.

Then again, the husks that Reapers so loved to swarm their enemies with never possessed enough intelligence to use any complicated tactics. In fact, most of the time, they just blindly rushed the barricades and overwhelmed the defenders with their sheer numbers. Heavy infantry with rapid-fire particle cannons – the very same ones used for point defense on the warships – was all but a perfect counter to such attacks.

The rest of Javik's 'pupils' were far more interesting though. They were from the actual special forces. And while they might not look as impressive as the shock troops with their power armor, these guys were probably far more dangerous. They were saboteurs, infiltrators and assassins that conducted missions of highest importance behind the enemy lines without revealing themselves. All of them were knowledgeable, highly-intelligent and extremely proficient fighters. They were also issued the best personal weapons and light armor in the Alliance's arsenal. Furthermore, these men and women the first ones to undergo experimental gene therapy to make their bodies as perfect as it those could possibly be. They also were the first ones to receive cybernetic augmentation that made them faster, stronger and more durable than a normal human could ever hope to be.

Granted, they might actually be not all that effective against the Reapers as the machine devils had no politicians to assassinate and no supply lines to sabotage, but... Through the memory shards, Javik knew that Reapers made Zha'til fight for them during the early days of the Empire's fall. It was quite possible that they would try something similar when they show up once again – binding an entire race to their will and using them to weaken those who were too strong-minded or too cautious to be mass-indoctrinated into servants of destruction. And against those slaves of the Reapers, these men would be nothing short of devastating.

So, if he could show all these men, what a war against the Reapers was; if could teach them, how to survive in that nightmare; and if they will spread these knowledge... Then, perhaps, this cycle might still have a chance. And he will have his vengeance against those monsters from the Dark Space.

 **~/ *** \~**

Jarak Korash was a gilded youth from Khar'shan, whose father was a high-ranked minister within the Hegemony. Though, unlike many of his peers, he wasn't content to simply get the slaves for himself from the market. A spirit of adventurer dwelt within him, and so he wanted to personally explore the stars and conquer his future servants with his own hands.

And since he was pretty vocal about his desires, Jarak eventually got his father annoyed enough to get a small 'mercenary' fleet hired to act as his muscle during his adventures out in the galaxy. Of course, the ships he now had under his command weren't the newest or most powerful ones, but... These vessels were still pretty good and could easily take on random pirates that frequented the 'northern' regions of Attican Traverse.

Jarak, however, had a different destination in mind. Since the law against activating Mass Relays was put in place before this region of space could be explored, there was a large blank spot between Horse Head nebula and Aethon cluster. Sure, there was a good chance that he will encounter nothing of interest or value there, but young master Korash was willing to bet a lot of time and resources on the off-chance that some previously-unknown species lived in this part of the galaxy. Being the one to discover a new race, and the first one to get slaves of that race would definitely be a great honor to his family and a ticket into the highest caste of the Hegemony.

The destination he had in mind, however, wasn't going to be an easy one to reach. Venturing beyond the edge of the Batarian space was one thing; reaching into the complete unknown was something else completely. And Jarak wasn't stupid to launch such an expedition without proper preparations. No matter what the bigots at the Citadel might think about his species, Batarians were no fools. And he himself was among the brightest of the next generation. So, yes, he was not stupid by any means. Maybe not as intelligent as some Salarian scientists, but...

Anyway, as soon as he was given the command over 'his' flotilla, he began retrofitting it with the best his money could afford. All four ships get extra fuel tanks and high-capacity cell to store the core's discharge installed. Their storage compartments were also modified in order to store large amounts of water and preserved food that would be necessary during the prolonged stay in the previously-unmapped parts of the galaxy.

Those retrofits were neither cheap nor all that quick to implement, but Jarak was sure that the amazing discoveries he would make during his expedition would make them worth every minute and every last credit spent... And once the retrofits were completed, young master Korash immediately ordered the ships under 'his' command to set sails for Eskimo nebula, the edge systems of the Batarian space. From there they would leave the known parts of the galaxy and make a brave jump into the unknown.

* * *

It has been six weeks since Jarak's journey began, and only now 'his' ships finally reached the truly unexplored regions of the space. And the first few systems visited weren't really inspiring: zero garden worlds and barely any mineral resources to mine, but that wasn't enough to discourage the young Batarian from continuing this adventure.

Then, another week later, he finally hit a proverbial jackpot! The flotilla reached a star system only known by the code the Citadel-space astronomers gave it some two centuries ago. Once again, there weren't many valuable resources in this system, and while it did have a garden world, it was a hellish planet only Krogan or Vorcha could live on. No, the real value of this star system lay within a Mass Relay it contained. A Relay that didn't exist on any current galactic maps.

Jarak, of course, was very interested in what he might find beyond this Relay, but he wasn't about to jump into the unknown just like that. First, he was going to leave a small beacon here – just like he had done on the previous legs of his journey – to help other people find him if something went wrong during his expedition. Next, this was a good opportunity to resupply 'his' ships with fresh water as not every drop could always be recycled, no matter what you tried.

These procedures took a few hours, and, when the ships finally returned to the orbit, something really unexpected happened: the Mass Relay got activated. From the other side. And while Jarak was a bit scared of the aliens he was about to confront – what if they were like Yahg? – he was still eager to meet them. After all, the chances were, they would be no match to his Batarian might and would become his slaves. And being the first one to get the slaves from a previously-unknown race was an incredible honor within the Hegemony!..

"Commander!" A mercenary manning the sensor array controls called almost as soon as the Mass Relay flashed blue. "I'm reading a single ship of unknown origin. It has no Citadel-standard identification code." So, yes, this vessel almost certainly belonged to some new race.

"And what can you say about the ship itself?" The Batarian youth asked.

"It is hard to get an accurate reading over such a vast distance, but it appears that the unknown vessel is pretty small. Probably smaller than our frigates." The merc replied. "But I read a pretty powerful Eezo core, so it will likely have some pretty powerful shields. Maybe even on par with the latest line of Turian cruisers." Now that wasn't exactly the good news, Jarak thought, but even if it was that well protected, such a small ship simply couldn't mount a mass accelerators powerful enough to be a real threat to 'his' flotilla.

"Have they noticed us?" He asked next.

"Seems likely: they are broadcasting what I assume is a first-contact message." The mercenary replied. "It doesn't use any of the standard data formats, so our VI will need a few minutes to decipher this message." Young master Korash waved his hand dismissively.

"Don't bother translating that now. We can do it at our leisure when we seize that vessel." He said authoritatively. "Approach it quietly and hit it with disruptor torpedoes. Once its shields are down, disable it with cannon fire."

"Yes, sir!" The cruiser's crew chorused as they hurried to their battle stations. They all were just as eager to get their grabby hands on the never-seen-before riches of that unknown ship and the world it came from as their 'commander' was.

For the next few minutes everything seemed to be quite fine. The alien vessel, while obviously wary of their approach due to them ignoring its hails, wasn't spooked into fleeing through the Relay. Then, once they got close enough, Jarak ordered to open fire. And things went straight to hell.

As it turned out, the unknown vessel – in addition to its surprisingly-powerful shields – also possessed some really good point defense systems: only six disruptor torpedoes out of almost four dozens that were fired managed to get close enough to deal any damage. And that was nowhere near enough to bring the ship's shields down.

Then the unidentified ship returned fire...

 **~/ *** \~**

Admiral Hong, the commander of the Sol Alliance's Exploration Fleet, furrowed his brows as he read the latest report from one of the scouting vessels. Normally, one of his sub-commanders would do that and then give him a brief summary of the report in question, but not today... No, the report sent by _ **SA-SSV Indomitable**_ was simply too important to be treated like that.

After all, the vessel made a first contact almost as soon as it jumped through the Eskimo nebula Mass Relay. Unfortunately, it was not a peaceful first contact: a small group of four alien ships – assumed to be pirates due to them having no common design as well as being aged and patched multiple times – didn't answer the friendly hails, immediately attacking the destroyer instead.

 _ **Indomitable**_ won the resulting battle and even managed to leave the biggest of the enemy vessels largely intact, but sustained some very serious damage in return. All four of its attack drones were destroyed, as were its starboard hangar and cannon turrets. Propulsion systems were also damaged, leaving _**Indomitable**_ barely able to move under its own power. And while the physical damage to the ship was quite extensive, it was nothing when compared to the deaths of nine of its brave crewmen.

Attached to this report was another one: the orders rear-admiral Ivanchenko issued in response to this situation. The first one, of course, was the evacuation of the crippled ship to the safety of the Sol Alliance's space. Next, he called for scavenging any useful information from the remains of the defeated alien vessels. Finally, several spy probes were to be deployed throughout the system while a detachment fleet was to guard the Alliance's Mass Relay leading into that system.

Now, normally that would be a bad decision, but given the limited resources of the Exploration fleet, occupying an entire system – one that could be reached via conventional FTL from the nearby star cluster – would mean that many of the fleet's exploration missions would have to be postponed indefinitely. Meanwhile, using a Mass Relay to funnel enemy ships straight into the cannons' crosshair meant that even only a handful of destroyers could keep the forces of potential foe at bay.

Of course, admiral Hong would rather his fleet not fight anyone at all, but... One needed to always be prepared for the worst. And he would do his best to keep Earth safe from the dangerous elements lurking throughout the galaxy.

 **~/ *** \~**

"What can we do for you this day, ambassador?" The Asari Councilor, matriarch Tevos, asked in her ever-polite calm voice. On the inside, however, she and her fellow councilors were quite very annoyed with the Batarian Hegemony's representative standing before them – the four-eyed man had the gall to _demand_ the Council meeting! Hell, he probably even believed himself to be _their_ superior! What an impudence!..

"Several standard galactic days ago, a group of destroyed crafts without proper identifications was discovered on the edges of the Hegemony's territory." Darnak Kar'lash informed the council.

"And why does the Council care if a few pirates went extinct?" The Turian councilor snapped.

"Be patient, Turian! I'm not done talking." Batarian ambassador snapped back. Taking a moment to recompose himself, he continued: "As I was trying to say, the damage to those vessels is inconsistent with any known weapons in the galaxy." With a wide hand gesture, he then summoned a holographic display showing several close-up images of the ships in question.

"That doesn't look like mass accelerator impacts." The Turian councilor observed. And, having been a dreadnaught captain before his 'promotion' into the world politics, he knew what he was talking about. "Explosives are also highly unlikely to be the cause of this."

"And that's what I'm talking about!" The representative of the Batarian Hegemony called, asserting his superiority in this argument. Too bad, he thought, winning this case would not be enough to stop these barbarians from looking down upon his people's rich culture...

"Yes, yes." The Salarian councilor agreed with his Palaven-born colleague. "Possibly done with a direct energy weapon. A very powerful one. No such weapon is known to the STG."

"...And thus we have two possibilities on our hands." Tevos continued the thought. "Either the Geth decided to end their self-imposed isolation and ventured beyond the Perseus Veil for the first time in two centuries, or we're dealing with a new race, one than didn't develop along the path mapped by the Protheans. These news are very troubling."

"Furthermore." Darnak Kar'lash continued. "The remains of these ships were discovered in a system with a previously uncharted Mass Relay. Which was activated. Illegally, of course. Whoever did that, has no regards for the Citadel laws. And they are a danger to the Hegemony! I demand the Council forces assist the our noble defenders in showing these upstarts their proper place: on their knees before the Batarian Hegemony!"

"You do not make demands of the Council, ambassador." Tevos replied with some hard steel in her usually-diplomatic voice. "Furthermore, if this is indeed a new race, it's technologies and resources should benefit everyone in the Council space, especially if it is our combined strength that brings them into the fold." The representative of the Hegemony, of course, wasn't satisfied with that. Who those three two-eyes thought they were, treating his people like some second-class citizens and denying them the best benefits of subjugating this new race? No, he would never stand for this!

"Listen here!" He snapped back at the council. "The Hegemony went out of its way to warn you about this new danger lurking in Traverse, you ungrateful!.. You owe us a lot – at least everything of value we can extract from those little bastards!" Darnak Kar'lash shouted.

And while the group continued to argue, an uninvited set of eyes was glued to the image of a destroyed vessel that the Batarian ambassador showed the Council at the beginning of this meeting. These eyes belonged to a surprisingly-large insect-like creature that, despite its weird appearance, managed to remain unseen by everyone but a keeper – and keepers never cared about anyone.

Either way, the one spying on this Council meeting via this biological surveillance bug was growing quite concerned with this development. Someone decided to deviate from the path every race in the galaxy was supposed to follow. And it might complicate things in this cycle a bit. Still, while the destruction of the group that began the development of large-scale direct energy weapons was important, it wasn't something that needed to be done right away: it was still a bit too early to begin this harvest, and Collectors combing through the Traverse would draw too much unnecessary attention. No, the best course of action right now was to wait for this group to go public, and then have indoctrinated politicians in various positions of power defang it via the application of 'Citadel laws'. Yes, right now that appeared to the best way to go about this unexpected development, _**Harbinger**_ decided...

 **~/ *** \~**

Matriarch Lidanya sighed as she observed the Citadel Defense Force's warships carry out their duties. It's been two months since everyone was put on high alert following the Batarian ambassador's meeting with the Council, but so far nothing out of ordinary has happened and the crews were getting tired. Hell, even those like her, who were lucky to serve on the luxuriously-spacious dreadnaughts couldn't wait for their shore leaves... Yet, until this whole situation with the potentially-hostile aliens armed with weapons the STG knew nothing about was resolved, the Force will have to continue guarding the Citadel with its full might incessantly.

Her further train of thoughts was interrupted by a beeping of her omni-tool telling her that she had an incoming call. Judging be the provided information, it was a broadcast from the traffic control of the Citadel. In other words, something extremely important. So, she wasted to time and took this call.

"...Noveria traffic control sent us a message that they have an unscheduled spike in transits towards the Serpent nebula." A Turian operator said. "General Anoximus believes that the force X..." That was the designation given to the mysterious aliens the Batarian ambassador had warned the Council about. "...May be sending a strike force against the Citadel. It is..." Whatever else he was going to say was drowned out by the ship-wide message from the captain, ordering everyone to their battle stations.

And even though matriarch Lidanya hurried to the bridge as mush as she could, it still took her a couple of minutes to arrive there – the dreadnaughts were annoyingly large when you needed to get from one end to another fast. What's more, she barely had enough time to get comfortable at her post before the Mass Relay began spewing out a whole fleet of ships of a design that has never been seen before in the Citadel Space.

With the exception of three non-combat – though not defenseless by a long shot – vessels at the heart of this fleet, no ship was big enough to qualify as a full-sized cruiser by the Citadel-space standards; most these alien warships were smaller than frigates of Council races. However, Lidanya thought, once you account for the fact that these aliens were using relatively-compact energy cannons in place of huge mass accelerators, the small size of their warships was perfectly understandable.

The formation these aliens flew their ships was also quite interesting. It was better suited for showing off at a parade, than for actual combat. Of course, that didn't mean that shooting them all – or even just the three 'civilian' vessels at the center of the formation – would be easy, should a battle break out. But, perhaps, these aliens were indeed just showing off their might and didn't intent to attack the Citadel without a provocation... After all, if they did, why bring anything but their most powerful warships?

Her further thoughts were interrupted when a communication officer announced that the alien fleet was broadcasting a message. Using one of the variations of the Citadel standard encoding. Curious about when these aliens had to say, Lidanya requested the communication officer to play the message for her:

"Greetings, people of the Citadel space." A low, rough voice – kinda like Turian, but without flanging effect – spoke. "We of Sol Alliance appear before you in peace." Well, the Asari matriarch though as she ordered this message forwarded to the commander of Citadel Defense Force, today definitely was going to be an interesting day...

 **~/ *** \~**

At the tender age of twenty eight, Liara T'Soni was still but a young child by the Asari standards. But she was a very bright child and, having completed her standard education ahead of time, she now attended one of the most prestigious universities on Thessia as she worked towards her academic degree, a doctorate in ancient galactic history.

Today, though, all seminars and lectures were canceled. Instead, students and professors alike were watching a live feed from the Citadel, where a historical event was taking place. It has been centuries since a first contact with a new race happened; and never before in the entire Council history it was not a single race but an already established alliance of races!

So far, though, only the aliens' ships have been shown. And their dark-silver with greenish tint hulls strongly reminded Liara of Prothean architecture. Which was kind of interesting: from what the reporter said, it looked like these aliens chose to develop along a technological path different from the one the Protheans followed.

Finally, the broadcast switched to one of the many docks aboard the Citadel. Here, the cameras showed hundreds of C-Sec Turian soldiers standing in full feather, showing off the might of the Citadel Council to the newcomers. Of course, should such need arise, they were also ready to protect the inhabitants of the Citadel with extreme ferocity.

Meanwhile, an Alliance's shuttle – once again, its design giving off strong Prothean vibes – descended into the docks, silently and seemingly-effortlessly landing on the designated platform. A moment passed and it's side door opened.

First, four large figures clad in full-body mechanized armor and armed with some really big guns stepped out of the shuttle. Each of these warriors looked so powerful that even a Krogan might not be their equal in combat. Too bad, their armor made it impossible to learn anything about the aliens' appearance, beyond the fact that their were bipedal and upright-walking... Once out of the shuttle, these four heavy infantrymen immediately assumed their positions by the craft, ready to protect its other passengers from any possible threat.

Next, several more soldiers stepped out. These ones used much lighter, but still identity-concealing, armor. Still, even without a single bit of their skin showing, it was clear that these aliens has body proportions astonishingly-similar to those of Asari... They lacked breasts, though. Or maybe their were just small enough for their armor to make them look completely flat?

Finally, the actual diplomats exited the shuttle. And at the moment every single Asari in the entire galaxy experienced a great shock and surprise: different skin tone and some strange fur on their heads aside, the aliens looked just like them! Of course, there had been talks about convergent evolution, but to actually see something so similar to them that originated from a completely alien world... It was... Breathtaking.

A few moments passed, and the final passengers of the shuttle left the craft, generating even more surprise within everyone who watching this. They were slightly taller than the pink Asari-lookalikes and their reptilian skins were bluish and light-gray in color. Their heads had V-shaped faces with four eyes and flattened tops. And even a single glance at them caused something ancient and long-forgotten to stir awake within the Asari. It was an unexplainable sensation originating from deep within their beings that told every Asari that these aliens were 'good'; that they were the source of power and knowledge; that they were...

"The Protheans." Liara whispered under her breath.

* * *

That's all, folks  
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